Talent Management Insights: The Dos And Don'ts That Can Make Or Break Your Organisation's Talent Pool

Organisations worldwide invest large amounts of resources, time and money in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). They are highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are talking about. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation hold them motivated all the way?

 

Visualize a goldfish inside a tank with lots of fighter fish. A formula1 car on any high-traffic road. Shoe polish adjacent to fruit racks in a retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? That's precisely how hipots will feel when 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:

 

Consider 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 her manager. The hipot may not find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with the manager or not look forward to learning from the manager.

 

 

CULTURE MISMATCH:

 

Everybody knows that adults don't want to be told. A hipot would hate for being directed at all times, plus they enjoy being challenged cognitively. Usually they would 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 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. Precisely what it takes in such an environment is to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot may find working in such an environment insulting. Hipots intend 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 carefully consider 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. If your organisation is attracting talent, you are sure to 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 salary is not going to keep the hipot motivated for long

• 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 can result in interpersonal challenges together with 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 the organisation

• Define the strategy to recruit hipots. You might have to ensure that they work with managers who can give them the right environment

• Conduct surveys to see if your organisation's culture is conducive for nurturing the talent pool. If 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 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 grow

• Make the promotion criteria objective and transparent

• It is certainly ok to not recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision need to be based on talent pool bench-marking

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