Leaders, be on the look out for high-potential employees!
Posted by Celia Couture on Tue, Mar 15, 2011 @ 10:30 AM
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Are you prepared with the right staff for economic recovery? Even though unemployment hovers around 10 percent, employees, especially those with HIGH potential are getting impatient. They want higher salaries, better benefits and greater challenges. They are starting to think about moving on. We have seen a significant increase in recruiting activity and requests are coming from employed workers! If you are the CEO or managing partner in a firm, you should be thinking about succession planning and how you are going to hold on to strong talent!
Competitors are not sitting around waiting; they are already on the hunt to STEAL your best employees. If these employees leave, will you have the talent you need to thrive when the economy turns? If not, it's time for you to move quickly. You should be thinking about having two people deep in key management positions. Are your managers engaging motivated employees? Have they thought about how to challenge these employees and provide them with promotional opportunity or experiences?
My advice, invest dollars and time in top managers and critical jobs. I know that we need to work hard to make all employees feel important, but focus should be on those with highest potential. Figure out ways to let high-potential employees know how special they are to the organization and show them HOW they are impacting the success of the organization going forward.
"A recent study from the Center for Creative Leadership, High-Potential Talent, A View from Inside the Leadership Pipeline, reveals that by telling high-potential employees that you value them, the chances they will stick around improve significantly. Only 14 percent of formally identified high-potentials are seeing other employment," says Roland Smith, professor of leadership at the Elon University School of Law in Greensboro, N.C., the number more than doubles for employees only indentified informally."
Come up with creative ways to scan your workforce for potential. Identify interesting and important projects for them to be involved in. Keep them engaged. If you don’t feel you have the potential in-house, it may be time to look outside your organization.