Many companies are aware of the importance of identifying and retaining high-potential employees. They see these individuals as the superstars of the organization, so it's no surprise that it would be valuable to retain these employees for as long as possible. However, often well-meaning leaders of organizations make these five avoidable mistakes in identifying and engaging high-potential employees:
1. Neglecting To Develop High-Potential Employees
Often, leaders are looking for ready-made high-performing employees — the ones who just perform at a high level without any energy or work from their direct managers or leaders within the organization. It's what I like to call a lazy management approach. High-potential employees are headed toward potentially being leaders within an organization and may not require as much hands-on management as other employees. However, just like any other employee, they need development, feedback and to feel a high level of engagement with the organization. High-potential employees are often the most simultaneously valued and neglected employees within the organization. They may be rewarded for their efforts, but without the development they also crave, they eventually become bored and disengaged.
2. Using Unclear And Subjective Criteria For Identifying High Potentials
The term "high potential" is a buzzword these days throughout organizations. However, it's important to be clear on why you are identifying an employee as a high potential. While it's tempting for leaders to use their gut or immediate observations to make this judgment, developing clear criteria to measure all employees against is a best practice. Notice I suggest measuring all employees by the same criteria. Solely focusing on individuals arbitrarily identified as high potentials and building criteria that they happen to already exude is a recipe for disaster. Instead, leaders should get clear on what competencies are valued within the organization, measure everyone against those competencies, and then determine which employees are strongest in those competencies. Those individuals should be within the high-potential employee group.
3. Focusing Only On High Potentials And Ignoring The Rest Of The Organization
It's then tempting to put all your focus on high potentials. After all, these employees are the only people really producing and moving the organization forward, right? Wrong. Turns out, leaders often have much more untapped potential than they realize. Once leaders recognize that high-potential employees can be developed, a next step would be to start looking within the organization for other employees who show signs of high potential. People often grow once the right conditions are provided. Explore the different motivations, learning styles and needs of others within the organization, and you'll be surprised how many other employees start to perform at a higher level.
4. Quickly Declassifying High-Potential Employees If They Hit A Rough Patch
There may be instances where a high-potential employee becomes disengaged or their performance starts to decline. Rather than engaging in a discussion with the employee to really identify what's going on, sometimes leaders are quick to move them off of the high-potential list based on a bad client meeting, a mistake the employee has made, a couple of negative comments made by others about the employee, etc. The truth is that employees who are high potentials rarely become poor performers. New challenges, changes in personal life or changes within an organization, among other things, can impact anyone temporarily. The key is to engage in a conversation and see what kind of support, if any, may be needed, and then give it some time to see if things turn back around.
5. Believing The Only Way To Retain High Potentials Is High Compensation And Promotions
High-potential employees want to be in an environment that is inspirational, challenging, unique and meets their personal career progression goals. It is wise for leaders to think of what challenging projects to engage high-potential employees in, what unique or once-in-a-lifetime opportunities can be offered by the organization and what training opportunities could be beneficial to those employees. Managers of high-potential employees often neglect important conversations with the employee about what their career goals are, what passions they have, what they are curious about and how that manager could support them. While compensation and promotions are absolutely important, they are usually not enough to retain high-potential employees, especially if they become disengaged.
There is good news: If an organization is guilty of any of these missteps, it's not too late to turn things around. A valuable first step is getting clarity on the criteria used to identify high potentials. From there, assess the entire organization to identify both untapped potential and to identify high-potential employees. Using a growth perspective, it will be important to invest in developing both groups. Lastly, start having conversations with high-potential employees about what is important to them, and start to think broader than just money as a reward.
