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

Organisations worldwide invest plenty of resources, money and time in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These are highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are discussing about. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation keep them motivated all the way?

 

Visualize a goldfish inside a tank full of fighter fish. A formula1 car on any heavy traffic road. Shoe polish just beside fruit racks in a retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? That's exactly how hipots will feel if they've 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:

 

Consider a situation where your hipot has to report to a manager who seems to be low on general intelligence. The manager would most likely take more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see this extra time as waste and incapability of their manager. The hipot may well not find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with the manager or not look forward to learning from the manager.

 

 

CULTURE MISMATCH:

 

We all know that adults don't want to be told. A hipot would hate being directed constantly, they usually love to be challenged cognitively. They'd prefer guidance only after trying out things on their own. An environment where the organisation or perhaps the managers are less tolerant towards learning through experiments and failures will not likely support nurturing a talent pool. ‘Telling approach' is one indicator of an organisation that lacks a high-performance culture.

 

ASPIRATION MISMATCH:

 

Tenure-based promotion is a popular enough a way to repel the talent pool from your organisation. What is needed in such an environment usually is 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 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 check 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 are generally two different things. If by chance your organisation is attracting talent, you will always have a talent surplus situation, no matter what the market condition is. Should you be buying talent from the market, you may consider the following thoughts:

 

• Increased wages are not going to keep the hipot motivated for long

• A Deputy Assistant VP grade won't 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 lead to 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 would have to ensure they work with managers who can give them the right environment

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

• Make leaders accountable for talent management and review them regularly

• Define a career path for all roles within the organisation. The 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 grow

• Make the promotion criteria objective and transparent

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

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