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

Organisations throughout the world invest a whole lot of resources, time and money in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These would highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are discussing about. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation hold them motivated all the way?

 

Visualize a goldfish in a tank full of fighter fish. A formula1 car on a heavy traffic road. Shoe polish next 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 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 supervisor who seems to be low on general intelligence. The manager would likely spend more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see this extra time as waste and incapability of the manager. The hipot might not find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with the manager or not look ahead to gaining knowledge from the manager.

 

 

CULTURE MISMATCH:

 

Everybody knows that adults often choose not to be told. A hipot would hate to be directed incessantly, plus they like to be challenged cognitively. Generally 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 definitely one indicator of an organisation that lacks a high-performance culture.

 

ASPIRATION MISMATCH:

 

Tenure-based promotion is a popular enough a way to repel the talent pool farther from organisation. Precisely what it takes in such an environment would be to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot might find being employed in such an environment insulting. Hipots anticipate to grow in accordance 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 look out for 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? You will see these are two different things. But if your organisation is attracting talent, you certainly will always have a talent surplus situation, no matter what the market condition is. When you are buying talent from the market, you may consider the following thoughts:

 

• Increased wages are not going to keep the hipot motivated for long

• A Deputy Assistant VP grade won't 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 along with an spiking of employee churn

 

 

Some pointers that 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 may have to make sure that they work with managers who can provide the 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. 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 definitely ok to not recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision should be based on talent pool bench-marking

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