The Need to Identify High Potential Employees

Imagine a company that focuses intensely on the present business climate and tries to not repeat its own past mistakes or the failings of its competition. Management retains talent by placing a lot of resource into an employee appraisal system, so that it can reward high performers generously. This system is kept largely confidential, between manager and employee only, so that morale won’t suffer. It also believes in recruiting externally only, because that’s the only place to find new talent.

Sound like a company prepared to succeed in the future to you? Not to me. Their attitude and policies are not progressive and do not take into account the career development needs of high-potential talent. Companies must continually be looking to the future. Competitiveness will only grow and using past performance as the benchmark for meeting subsequent challenges is not enough. And among the most important conditions to be constantly anticipating is the need to attract and retain talent. Without high-level operatives meeting the demands of the marketplace all other business efforts may prove to be inadequate.

Of course, all companies are different. But in sharing the need to obtain the best workers possible from both within and externally there are similar talent management practices, which should be evident in any forward leaning organization. These include:

• Having in place a talent assessment system that determines key players, high potential employees, and successors for critical positions.
• High-quality training of managers enabling them to understand the career development aspirations of their direct reports.
• Executive commitment to holding frequent talent review meetings designed to reinforce and improve the company’s talent management capability to locate and procure the best strength possible.
• Acting on developing high potential workers for succession planning, cross-functional capability, and in-depth expertise building purposes.

Constructing a talent management process that is transparent has a greater likelihood of improving morale, rather than depressing it. A culture that cuts one-off deals with its employees creates suspicion and claims of favoritism, whereas an open mechanism that shows consistent application of best practice principles to all generates feelings of fairness. Giving the corporate message that individual career advancement is considered valuable augments the initiative to attract and hold a sharp workforce.

Another useful piece to a talent management system is to separate distinguishing high performers from high potential. They are not always the same. Task analyzing critical operational functions and aligning them with specific worker traits can aid in selecting the right people for the right job. How many times have we heard stories of high functioning line workers being elevated to management positions for which they are not well suited? As counterintuitive as it may seem, there is not always a positive correlation between high achievement and high potential. Teasing out and choreographing a connection can be made, but only as a result of sophisticated inquiry.

A big fear among company policy makers is that devoting resources to developing employees may be seen as a waste if the talent leaves the company. In fact the feeling goes, too much fostering of workers’ skill and knowledge may actually make them more attractive to competitors. One thing that is becoming clear in today’s business climate is that if a company does not commit to developing their talent the champions will likely leave sooner for a company that does. Constructing and reviewing often comprehensive employee retention plans in addition to implementing individual career development plans will increase the chances that a company’s pasture will be seen as greener.

Advanced enterprise-wide talent management is much more involved than the brief description presented here. But the need for companies big and small to structure a system that is consistent with their organizational culture and the best practices of talent engineering is necessary for them to prosper in the marketplace of the future with the greatest people possible.