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

Organisations throughout the world invest large amounts 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 quite a while?

 

Visualize a goldfish inside a tank with lots of fighter fish. A formula1 car on any heavy traffic road. Shoe polish next to fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? This is precisely how hipots will feel when they have to work in an environment that does not suit their culture, aspirations, and capabilities. They will 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 manager who's low on general intelligence. The manager would likely take 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 ahead to learning from the manager.

 

 

CULTURE MISMATCH:

 

Everyone knows that adults would not like to be told. A hipot would hate to be directed incessantly, plus they like to be challenged cognitively. They might prefer guidance only after trying out things on their own. An environment where the organisation and the managers are less tolerant towards learning through experiments and failures will not 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 good enough reason to repel the talent pool farther from organisation. What is needed in such a situation usually is to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot might find being employed 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 check 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 get it from the market? You will see these are two different things. If by chance 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 for very long

• 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 can lead to interpersonal challenges as well as an spiking 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'll have to ensure they work with managers who can provide them the right environment

• Conduct surveys to check 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 answerable 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 grow

• Make the promotion criteria objective and transparent

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

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