Organisations globally invest a lot 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 referring to. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation keep them motivated quite a while?
Visualize a goldfish in a tank full of fighter fish. A formula1 car on any high-traffic road. Shoe polish at the side of fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? That's exactly 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:
Consider 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 extra 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 forward to gaining knowledge from the manager.
CULTURE MISMATCH:
Everybody knows that adults wouldn't want to be told. A hipot would hate being directed repeatedly, and they love 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 won't 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 farther from organisation. Precisely what it takes in such a situation would be to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot may find operating in such an environment insulting. Hipots intend 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 get it from the market? These are two different things. But if your organisation is attracting talent, there is no doubt that you will 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 salary is not going to keep the hipot motivated permanently
• 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 may bring about interpersonal challenges together with 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 may have to make certain that 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. 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. The employee should enter, get promoted, and exit the organisation at the right 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 must be based on talent pool bench-marking
