Talent Management: The Dos And Don'ts Which Will Make Or Break Your Organisation's Talent Pool

Organisations across the world invest a lot of resources, time and money in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These generally are highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are referring to. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation place them motivated for long?

 

Visualize a goldfish inside a tank full of fighter fish. A formula1 car on a high-traffic road. Shoe polish adjacent to fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? That's exactly how hipots will feel should they have to work in an environment that does not 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:

 

Take into consideration a situation where your hipot has to report to a manager who is low on general intelligence. The manager would likely spend more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see this additional time as waste and incapability of their manager. The hipot would possibly not find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with the manager or not really look forward to learning from the manager.

 

 

CULTURE MISMATCH:

 

Everyone knows that adults don't wish to be told. A hipot would hate for being directed at all times, and they enjoy being challenged cognitively. They would prefer guidance only after trying out things on their own. An environment where the organisation or even 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 ground repel the talent pool farther from organisation. What is needed in such an environment is 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 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 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? You will see these are two different things. When 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 all the way

• A Deputy Assistant VP grade is not going to 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 could lead to interpersonal challenges as well as an increased amount of employee churn

 

 

Some pointers that can assist 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 will have to make certain that they work with managers who can provide them the right environment

• Conduct surveys to ascertain 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 absolutely ok not to recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision must be based on talent pool bench-marking

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