By Geri Westphal
If you don’t tell an employee how valuable she is along with the opportunities that are available to her, a recruiter will.
A weak labor market and an economic downturn may have held turnover rates down in many organizations over the past few years. But as the labor market thaws, corporations are at greater risk of losing their high-potential employees (HIPOs) to other organizations. Therefore, a robust talent management program is critical to proactively identify and retain these high performers.
While many peer group members in the NeuGroup universe have programs that rank employee performance and distinguish top talent, few actually tell their employees the results of these ranking exercises. This might be a mistake because if employees aren’t told how they rank and what opportunities are available to them, an executive recruiter just might, and typically when it reaches this stage it’s likely too late to salvage the relationship and your employee may be gone.
Many organizations identify a high-potential employee as someone who is capable of rising to extreme challenges and succeeding in a more senior, critical role within the organization. An employee’s potential is defined in a variety of ways, with the traditional 9-Box evaluation model being most popular among peer group members (see graph below). The 9-box grid is an individual assessment tool that evaluates both an employee’s current contribution to the organization and his or her potential level of contribution. If an employee is identified as a high potential employee, they may be placed on a specialized career path suited to their individual strengths and weaknesses depending on management’s view of where growth is needed. The evaluation of an employee’s overall ability includes an assessment of their personality traits along with the learned skills they possess. Growth can come by way of technical training to gain a particular skill, or it could be targeted toward the enhancement of an individual’s interpersonal skills or personal brand development.
Most organizations have strong processes in place to help develop talent based on their career aspirations and job skills, but if you don’t take time to talk to employees about how they are perceived by other organization leaders, you may be doing them a disservice. Their career-planning roadmap should include both tangible job skills and intangible people skills including presentation and public speaking, as examples.
Defining a better them ultimately defines a better you.