Organisations across the world invest lots of resources, time and money in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These are generally highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we're discussing about. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation hold them motivated quite a while?
Imagine a goldfish in a tank with lots of fighter fish. A formula1 car on a heavy traffic road. Shoe polish just beside fruit racks in a retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? That's precisely how hipots will feel if they've to work in an environment that doesn't suit their culture, aspirations, and capabilities. They may 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 is low on general intelligence. The manager would most probably spend more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see this additional time as waste and incapability of their manager. The hipot may not find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with the manager or not look ahead to gaining knowledge from the manager.
CULTURE MISMATCH:
We all know that adults often choose not to be told. A hipot would hate to be directed incessantly, and they like to be challenged cognitively. Usually they would 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 likely not 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 good enough a way to repel the talent pool from the organisation. All it takes in such an environment will be to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot may find working 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 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 buy it from the market? You will see these are two different things. If your organisation is attracting talent, you might 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 quite a while
• 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 result in interpersonal challenges as well as an increase in 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'll have to ensure that they work with managers who can offer them the right environment
• Conduct surveys to check if your organisation's culture is conducive for nurturing the talent pool. In case there are 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. 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 totally ok to not recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision need to be based on talent pool bench-marking
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