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

Organisations across the globe invest large amounts of resources, time and money in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). You will see these 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 lastingly?

 

Visualize a goldfish in a tank full of fighter fish. A formula1 car on any heavy traffic road. Shoe polish just beside fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? That's simply how hipots will feel when they have to work in an environment that doesn't 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 manager who seems to be low on general intelligence. The manager would most likely 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 ahead to gaining knowledge from the manager.

 

 

CULTURE MISMATCH:

 

Everybody knows that adults don't want to be told. A hipot would hate being directed at all times, plus they love to be challenged cognitively. Generally 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 do not 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 good enough ground repel the talent pool farther from organisation. All it takes in such an environment is to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot can find operating in such an environment insulting. Hipots intend 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 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? These generally are two different things. Should your organisation is attracting talent, you certainly will 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 for long

• A Deputy Assistant VP grade will 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 bring about interpersonal challenges as well as an increasing amount of employee churn

 

 

Some pointers to 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 will have to make sure that they work with managers who can provide them with 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. 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 develop

• Make the promotion criteria objective and transparent

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

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