Organisations around the world invest a whole lot of resources, money and time in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These are generally highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are discussing. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation keep them motivated quite a while?
Imagine a goldfish inside a tank with lots of fighter fish. A formula1 car on any heavy traffic road. Shoe polish beside fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? That's simply how hipots will feel if they've got 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:
Take into consideration a situation where your hipot has to report to a supervisor who seems to be 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 her 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:
Everyone knows that adults often choose not to be told. A hipot would hate for being directed incessantly, plus they like to be challenged cognitively. They generally would prefer guidance only after trying out things on their own. An environment where the organisation and the managers are less tolerant towards learning through experiments and failures cannot support nurturing a talent pool. ‘Telling approach' is considered one indicator of an organisation that lacks a high-performance culture.
ASPIRATION MISMATCH:
Tenure-based promotion is a good enough reason to repel the talent pool from the organisation. What is needed in such a situation will be to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot might find employed in such an environment insulting. Hipots anticipate to grow based on 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 generally 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. 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 too long
• A Deputy Assistant VP grade will not likely 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 result in interpersonal challenges as well as an increasing amount of employee churn
Some pointers which will 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 might have to ensure they work with managers who can offer them the right environment
• Conduct surveys to ascertain 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 grow
• Make the promotion criteria objective and transparent
• It is certainly ok not to recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision should be based on talent pool bench-marking
