Talent Management Insights: The Dos And Don'ts That Can Make Or Break Your Organisation's Talent Pool

Organisations around the world invest lots of resources, time and money in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These are highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are dealing with. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation keep them motivated for long?

 

Imagine a goldfish in a tank with lots of fighter fish. A formula1 car on any high-traffic road. Shoe polish adjacent to fruit racks in a retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? This is exactly how hipots will feel should they have to work in an environment that does not 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:

 

Take into consideration a situation where your hipot has to report to a supervisor 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 their manager. The hipot would possibly not find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with the manager or not really look forward to gaining knowledge from the manager.

 

 

CULTURE MISMATCH:

 

We all know that adults don't wish to be told. A hipot would hate being directed incessantly, plus they like to be challenged cognitively. They'd prefer guidance only after trying out things on their own. An environment where the organisation or the managers are less tolerant towards learning through experiments and failures will not 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 good enough a way to repel the talent pool from the organisation. Precisely what it takes in such an environment will be to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot may find operating in such an environment insulting. Hipots expect to grow in accordance 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 look for 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 buy it from the market? These generally are two different things. Chances are if your organisation is attracting talent, you may always have a talent surplus situation, no matter what the market condition is. In case you are buying talent from the market, you may consider the following thoughts:

 

• Increased wages are not going to keep the hipot motivated all the way

• A Deputy Assistant VP grade cannot mean much for a longer duration

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

• Recruiting hipots can result in interpersonal challenges as well as an increased employee churn

 

 

Some pointers that 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 that they work with managers who can provide them 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 in the organisation. Employees 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 completely ok to not recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision should be based on talent pool bench-marking

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