Talent Management: Practices That Can Make Or Break Your Organisation's Talent Pool

Organisations across the globe 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're discussing about. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation keep them motivated lastingly?

 

Visualize a goldfish in a tank with lots 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 simply how hipots will feel in case they have to work in an environment that doesn't suit their culture, aspirations, and capabilities. They will 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 supervisor 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 her manager. The hipot may well not find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with the manager or not look forward to gaining knowledge from the manager.

 

 

CULTURE MISMATCH:

 

Everybody knows that adults would not like to be told. A hipot would hate to be directed incessantly, plus they enjoy being 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 cannot 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 a situation is usually to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot can find employed 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 get it from the market? You will see these are two different things. In case your organisation is attracting talent, you might 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 very long

• A Deputy Assistant VP grade will likely not 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 may lead to interpersonal challenges and an increasing amount of employee churn

 

 

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

 

• Define the DNA of hipots for the organisation

• Define the strategy to recruit hipots. You may have to ensure they work with managers who can provide them with 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 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 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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