High potential employees, also known as HiPos, bring great value to their organisation. Statistically, they are 91% more valuable to businesses than their peers! However, this rare group of potential leaders is hard to find and even harder to retain without the right processes in place.
Many companies invest a lot of money in recruiting high potential employees, but do so little to retain them. In fact, the employees you have working in mission-critical roles are those who tend to leave if they find that they are no longer valued. 25% of them are of this nature, what you might consider “high risk” when it comes to retention.
At a time when talent is so crucial, organisations must put strategies in place to avoid losing the people with the most value. Here are 3 strategies for retaining HiPos that you should be thinking about today.
High potential employees play a significant role in any organisation. Their competence can effectively increase the organisation’s return on investment, but losing them would greatly impact the organisation. So, retaining these top talents is vital.
If you know how to identify HiPos, you will notice that they are always chasing after new opportunities in their careers. Investing in HiPos is ideal, but retaining them in the long run is inevitable.
The moment HiPos are unable to find meaning in their jobs, they will start looking elsewhere for new opportunities. After all, they already have what it takes to amaze new employers seeking for high potential and high performing employees.
Before we address how to retain your HiPo employees, let’s begin by analysing the causes of voluntary resignation in your company.
One way to understand why your HiPo employees leave is by examining the reasons that might prompt them to hand in their resignation letters. Many leaders deduce that employees leave because of remuneration but this is not true. 89% of employers wrongly believe their employees quit because of low pay.
In retrospect, only 12% leave their job because they want higher pay. The reasons for HiPos leaving go much deeper than pay. So, what could be the possible reason for these top talents to leave?
Here, we identify 3 common issues that cause top talent to leave an organisation.
1. Lack of Growth
We now know that HiPos are creatures of career advancement opportunities. The reason a HiPo employee would leave is the lack of such an opportunity. They either feel their careers aren’t going as planned or the company they work for does not provide a potential path to grow. Having said that, companies can fail in this area in two ways:
- Not actively building a career path for HiPos
- Not communicating the opportunities for learning properly to HiPos
A study by Willis Towers Watson showed that over 70% of “high-retention-risk” employees leave due to a lack of future advancement in their current job. The benefits of developing and communicating a clear learning and advancement path for HiPos is that the more they grow, the more value they bring to their organization.
In fact, research has shown that the value of a HiPo employee linearly grows with the job level. Learn about potential traps when designing HiPo development programs and how to avoid them.
2. 'Bossy' Boss
While everyone at the company may work towards the same goal, the pace and strategy, however, differ from one another. It applies to both a new employee and a HiPo employee. Thus, the managers or heads are appointed to pacify the process.
There is a saying that employees don’t quit their jobs, but they quit their managers. These employees do not willingly work for managers who put their career prospects at the cost of an unfortunate situation. How a manager treats employees can leave an impact on an employee’s work involvement.
Studies have shown that managers are accountable for 70% of the employee engagement. Yet 39% of employees in a study on turnover said their managers failed to keep promises, while 37% reported that their managers failed to credit them for their hard work.
3. Lack of Recognition
HiPo employees can also be categorised as high performers. According to the Harvard Business Review, top performers can be 400% more productive than average performers.
Your top performers are well aware of how much more work they accomplish compared to their peers, but are companies aware of this? High-potential performers are driven to excel, but they want recognition. If their contributions aren’t recognised in your organisation, then they will excel in someone else’s.
In addition to wanting recognition for their outstanding contributions, your top performers will also want feedback. While companies assume no one craves negative feedback, your star performers will want to know where they can improve and they appreciate the positive feedback.
All the same, feedback should be given regularly. Most employees resent waiting a year or more for a performance review that may focus on no-longer relevant issues, and your top performers are no different.
Now that we have uncovered the cause of why high-potential employees leave their job, let us address the following ways on how to retain a HiPo employee:
- Recognise
- Develop
- Nurture
1. RECOGNISE High Potential Employees
High-potential employees need to know that the commitments they make are valued and valuable. Recognising their work and reaffirming their significance to the organisation communicate that they are esteemed. However, if they are treated as an expendable resource, they may look for another boss who will appreciate them.
Compliment their work
A study revealed that 14% of HiPo employees only looked for another job after their work was consistently given compliments, while 33% searched for another job after their managers failed to compliment their work.
Reaffirm their value within the community
Embrace your top talents because if you don’t, somebody else will. Don’t let your top employees feel disowned. They have the potential which makes them an asset for the company’s successful growth. These relentless hard workers firmly deserve your recognition.
2. DEVELOP High Potential Employees
High potential employees know what they need from an advancement program and they keep this aligned with the company targets. Hence, a targeted and personalised development approach will contribute to upskilling your HiPo’s competencies and knowledge, and ultimately upgrade your organizational performance.
Impart advancement possibility
HiPo employees prefer to receive training and improvement as early as conceivable. A learner-centred approach views employees as active agents, bringing their own knowledge, past experiences, education, and ideas to the table. This impacts how they take on board new information and learn.
Preparing a list of the high potential employees helps them get ready for future leadership roles. This is not only fundamental in creating organisational progression, but also in retaining the talented people in the organization.
Learn More: How to Retain High Potential Employees? (Retain HiPo)
In today’s global market, with its global workforce, your company’s most important asset isn’t data, technology, equipment, or even intellectual property.
Today’s business landscape is dynamic and continuously changing.
Its knowledge economy and rapid evolutionary pace see businesses come and go, falling by the wayside.
Focus on creating a growth culture
With today’s business environment as complex, volatile, and competitive as it is, many companies demand much from their employees.
To fully realize your employees’ full potential, make coaches available.
High potential assessment - Omni View Consulting (M) Sdn Bhd is one of Malaysia’s established home-grown consulting firms.
Our working partnership with multinationals, and small and medium enterprises across a wide spectrum of industries spanning the last 20 years, enabled us.Click Here:- https://www.omniview.net/Omni View Consulting (M) Sdn Bhd is one of Malaysia’s established home-grown consulting firms.
Our working partnership with multinationals, and small and medium enterprises across a wide spectrum of industries spanning the last 20 years, enabled us to hone and refine our human resource expertise in tandem with the changing business environment.CONTACT DETAILSAddress:- Suite E-12-01, Plaza Mont Kiara No.2 Jalan Kiara, Mont Kiara 50480 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Phone:- +603 6201 1198Email:- [email protected]
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The performance review process should ensure the growth of the employees and the development of the company.
A study in 2013 by research firm i4cp asserts that only 28% of employees reckoned that their companies had en effective performance management system.
If the companies do not improve their performance management process, it would be hard for them to retain talents, and the employee turnover would increase drastically.
The 5 most common performance review mistakes.
Long before big data became cool in technology conversations, a baseball team manager and a Harvard Economics graduate applied Big Data analytics to baseball to create sporting history.
The concept was made popular by the movie, Moneyball, which recounts the compelling tale of the resurgence of the cash-strapped Oakland A’s which had just lost its star players to free agency.
Billy Beane, the then General Manager for the A’s, and Paul DePodesta, the Assistant General Manager, began analyzing baseball statistics to value and purchase players, which led to the team winning 20 consecutive games between August and September 2002.
Data-driven decision-making is now commonplace across key business functions including marketing, information technology, finance, and supply chain.
https://is.gd/NBPmt3 However, over the past few years, factors such as digital disruption, increased competition for talent, and changing workforce models have compelled HR leaders to embrace evidence-based decisions that can be linked to key business objectives.
Specific insights on what to expect in the future is a tremendous competitive advantage for organizations, and HR can leverage this technology to transform the business impact of the function drastically.
