Talent Management Insights: The Dos And Don'ts Which Makes Or Break Your Organisation's Talent Pool

Organisations around the world invest considerable resources, time and money in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These would highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we're discussing. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation hold them motivated lastingly?

 

Visualize a goldfish inside a tank with lots of fighter fish. A formula1 car on any heavy traffic road. Shoe polish just beside fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? That's exactly how hipots will feel if they've to work in an environment that doesn't suit their culture, aspirations, and capabilities. They are going to feel suffocated and what follows next is the hipot going in search of fresh air.

 

 

CAPABILITY MISMATCH:

 

Think about it as a situation where your hipot has to report to a manager who's low on general intelligence. The manager would likely take more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see this extra time as waste and incapability of her manager. The hipot won't find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with the manager or not really look forward to learning from the manager.

 

 

CULTURE MISMATCH:

 

Everybody knows that adults prefer not to be told. A hipot would hate to be directed all the time, plus they enjoy being challenged cognitively. They would prefer guidance only after trying out things on their own. An environment where the organisation or even the managers are less tolerant towards learning through experiments and failures will not likely support nurturing a talent pool. ‘Telling approach' is definitely one indicator of an organisation that lacks a high-performance culture.

 

ASPIRATION MISMATCH:

 

Tenure-based promotion is a popular enough ground repel the talent pool from the organisation. What is needed in such an environment is to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot will find doing work in such an environment insulting. Hipots intend to grow according to performance, effort and demonstrated capability.

 

Organisations can't expect hipots to wait patiently for their turn of promotion. The irony is that the organisations don't try to find their patience while recruiting them. The talent management strategy must be in line with the intent to nurture and retain the talent pool.

 

“At companies with very effective talent management, respondents are six times more likely than those with very ineffective talent management to report higher 'Total Returns to Shareholders' than competitors.”

 

“Only 5 per cent of respondents say their organizations' talent management has been very effective at improving company performance”.

 

Source - https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/winning-with-your-talent-management-strategy

 

 

ATTRACTING VS BUYING TALENT:

 

Does your organisation attracts talent or purchase it from the market? These are two different things. But if your organisation is attracting talent, you will always have a talent surplus situation, no matter what the market condition is. If you are buying talent from the market, you may consider the following thoughts:

 

• Increased salary is not going to keep the hipot motivated for long

• A Deputy Assistant VP grade is not going to mean much for a longer duration

• If there's a mismatch between expectations and reality, the hipot may regress in performance after joining your organisation

• Recruiting hipots may result in interpersonal challenges and an increased amount of employee churn

 

 

Some pointers which can help in making informed decisions about attracting, recruiting, and retaining the talent pool:

 

• Define the DNA of hipots for your organisation

• Define the strategy to recruit hipots. You will have to ensure they work with managers who can present the right environment

• Conduct surveys to see if your organisation's culture is conducive for nurturing the talent pool. If there are shortcomings, including organisational culture and practices, address them through a robust learning architecture

• Make leaders answerable for talent management and review them regularly

• Define a career path for all roles within the organisation. An employee should enter, get promoted, and exit the organisation at the correct time

• Make people development a default competency for managers and leaders. Organisations should give talent management competency enough weightage for making their promotions decisions

• Provide equal opportunity for all employees to learn and develop

• Make the promotion criteria objective and transparent

• It is absolutely ok not to recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision need to be based on talent pool bench-marking

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