Potential employees
Strategy driven talent management approach involves the recruitment, management, and promotion of employees in organizations. In the business setting just like in all aspects of the world change is the only constant thing. But despite change being so common, it is usually met with resistance both from senior leaders and their subordinates. Senior leadership resists the development of a strategy for various reasons. It is worth noting that every human resists changes mainly due to the fear of the unknown. Therefore senior leadership usually likes maintaining the status quo and secure their turf. To overcome this challenge the management should clearly communicate why the changes are being carried out and inform the leadership in advance. One reason that may be cited is that for the organization to achieve the goals and objectives the change must be implemented. If the senior leadership clearly understands the reason for change then there will be minimal or no resistance (Juneja, 2020). Senior managers also resist changes in instances where they do not see their role after the change is implemented. This makes the senior leadership to develop fear toward the young and talented employees. To prevent this a well-detailed succession planning should be developed within the organization. The development of such a plan sets a clear indication of why the changes occur. A change initiated by a rival group is usually resisted by the senior leadership due to mistrust making some senior leadership feel threatened. To overcome this challenge clear communication showing that the change is not meant to solve personal vendettas or push people out of the organization is necessary. The planning tool should also be used to show how the change is aligned with the common vision of the company.
Organizations usually have trouble selecting high potential employees who will become the future organization’s leader. The leaders who say they have their own method of selecting high potential employees based on their views usually confuse potential with performance (Alvarez, 2017). This is because supervisor nomination and performance appraisals which are usually used to show high performance are not good methods for identifying high potential employees. These methods predict how an individual may “look” like in the future based on past and present performance based on a supervisor’s point of view. But the identification of high potential employees is conducted based on science and analytics. Unlike performance high potential employees are identified through a multidisciplinary approach personality assessment which requires more than personal methods. Though performance is a strong indicator for the potential it does not offer a direct correlation to success for future leadership roles and thus not all high performers have high potential (Loehrke, 2015). The selection process of high potential employees should be systematic, transparent, and reliable. A single leader claiming to use own unstructured methods faces a risk of confusing performance with potential making it difficult to locate, develop, and retain critical talent.
References
Alvarez, J. (2017). How to Identify Future Leaders. Retrieved from https://hrexecutive.com/identify-future-leaders/
Juneja, P. (2020). Overcoming Barriers to Change. Retrieved from https://www.managementstudyguide.com/overcoming-barriers-to-change.htm
Loehrke, K. (2015). How to identify ‘high potentials’ and future leaders. Retrieved from https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/how-to/human-resources/2015/12/how-to-identify-high-potentials-and-future-leaders.html