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

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

 

Visualize a goldfish inside a tank with lots of fighter fish. A formula1 car on any heavy traffic road. Shoe polish just beside fruit racks in a retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? This is precisely 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:

 

Think about it as a situation where your hipot has to report to a supervisor who is low on general intelligence. The manager would most probably take 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 forward to learning from the manager.

 

 

CULTURE MISMATCH:

 

Everyone knows that adults usually wouldn't want to be told. A hipot would hate being directed incessantly, and they enjoy being challenged cognitively. Typically they would prefer guidance only after trying out things on their own. An environment where the organisation or maybe the managers are less tolerant towards learning through experiments and failures won't 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 popular enough reason 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 can find doing work in such an environment insulting. Hipots anticipate 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 carefully consider 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. When your organisation is attracting talent, you may 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 wages are not going to keep the hipot motivated for very long

• A Deputy Assistant VP grade will likely 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 could lead to interpersonal challenges and an increase in 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 might have to ensure 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. If 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 in the organisation. An employee should enter, get promoted, and exit the organisation at the correct 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 not to recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision must be based on talent pool bench-marking

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