Talent Management Strategy: The Dos And Don'ts Which Will Make Or Break Your Organisation's Talent Pool
Organisations globally invest a whole lot of resources, money and time in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These are highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are discussing about. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation hold them motivated for very long?
Visualize a goldfish in a tank with lots of fighter fish. A formula1 car on a high-traffic road. Shoe polish besides fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? That's exactly how hipots will feel if 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:
Consider a situation where your hipot has to report to a manager who seems to be low on general intelligence. The manager would most probably spend more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see this extra time as waste and incapability of their manager. The hipot may not find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with the manager or not look ahead to learning from the manager.
CULTURE MISMATCH:
We all know that adults wouldn't want to be told. A hipot would hate for being directed always, and they like to be challenged cognitively. They might 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 likely 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 ground repel the talent pool from the organisation. Precisely what it takes in such an environment would be to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot will 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 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 might always have a talent surplus situation, no matter what the market condition is. If you're buying talent from the market, you may consider the following thoughts:
• Increased salary is not going to keep the hipot motivated quite a while
• A Deputy Assistant VP grade will likely not 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 may lead to interpersonal challenges as well as an increased 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 may have to make sure that they work with managers who can provide them with the right environment
• Conduct surveys to ascertain if your organisation's culture is conducive for nurturing the talent pool. Should there be 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. Employees 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 totally ok not to recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision should be based on talent pool bench-marking