Talent Management: Practices Which Will Make Or Break Your Organisation's Talent Pool

Organisations across the globe invest considerable resources, time and money in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). They are highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are referring to. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation hold them motivated for very long?

 

Visualize a goldfish in a tank full of fighter fish. A formula1 car on any 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 if they've 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:

 

Think about it as a situation where your hipot has to report to a supervisor who's 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 their manager. The hipot would possibly 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 usually wouldn't want to be told. A hipot would hate for being directed incessantly, and they like to be challenged cognitively. They would prefer guidance only after trying out things on their own. An environment where the organisation as well as managers are less tolerant towards learning through experiments and failures will not 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 a way to repel the talent pool from the organisation. All it takes in such an environment usually is to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot could find operating 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 pay attention to 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 buy it from the market? These generally are two different things. Chances are if your organisation is attracting talent, you may 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 wages are not going to keep the hipot motivated for very long

• A Deputy Assistant VP grade will 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 result in interpersonal challenges as well as an increased amount of employee churn

 

 

Some pointers which can 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 would have to ensure they work with managers who can provide the the right environment

• Conduct surveys to check 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 in 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 develop

• Make the promotion criteria objective and transparent

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

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