Techniques for managing superior talent

It is organisations’ workforce that drives them to reach greater heights. Managing employees effectively and efficiently, especially those who pay a higher contribution to the organisation, is pivotal to the future success of the company. High-performing businesses are driven by superior talent, as they are consistently focused upon and managed.

Superior talent has to be managed using several different techniques that involve identifying them, motivating them and working on retaining them.

Talent identification    

Identifying talent is about segregating high performing superior talent from the rest of the workforce. This has to be done in several ways, such as performance appraisals and assessments. An organisation using performance appraisal techniques where employees can be benchmarked, will find it easier to identify superior talent.

In the meantime businesses must be cautious in doing ad hoc manual performance appraisals for talent identification. This is because not many organisations do performance analysis in a consistent and standardised manner causing many repercussions. Incorrectly analysing performance of employees may significantly de-motivate them and induce dysfunctional behaviour.

Performance management

A proper performance management information system must be used which will be able to appraise performance in a systematic manner according to the accepted techniques. The reduction of human intervention in performance appraisal will add to the credibility of the talent identification process.

Performance management tools must be continued to be used even after talent has been identified. High-performing individuals must be constantly monitored to see if they are performing to their potential. If their performance levels are low, then reasons for that could be identified and solved. Some of the issues that cause an employee to perform low can also cause that specific employee to leave later on.

Continuous performance analysis will also help to identify new changes in employee performance levels. Subsequently, new or emerging talent can also be identified.

Succession planning

Superior talent must be constantly provided with the potential for future development in the organisation. A clear unambiguous promotion plan will motivate high-performing individuals and keep them from looking elsewhere for other opportunities. It will also help the organisation plan for unexpected events like key people leaving, and also have a roadmap for the future, which would play a major role in improving its stability.

Maintaining such a plan is easy when the organisation structure or organisational chart is maintained by an HR system. This will ensure that there is only one succession plan and that there is no miscommunication between the HR department and the employees.

Using analytics

Analytics is another useful tool that can be used not only to identify high-performers, but also to understand the factors and influences that make them perform in that way. Analytics helps to find out the relationship between any two factors.

Sometimes by using analytics it can be found that it is commuting distances that reduce employee performance. This factor can then be controlled so that employee performance is maximised and potential high performers are not missed.

Rewarding and recognising

Employees with superior talent must be rewarded and recognised far more than the rest of their colleagues, every manager knows this. But should every high performer be paid the same? Are there people who perform even better than the average high-performer? If so they will not be happy with being classed with the rest. They will want higher rewards and recognitions.

To solve this issue a reward structure based on employee performance must be utilised. However, HR managers must keep in mind that not all performance based pay techniques work. All aspects of an employee must be considered, from compliance of organisational policy to timeliness of objective delivery. This standardised holistic approach, only implementable using an HRIS system, will make employees feel that they are all treated the same and high-performers that they are fairly rewarded.

Conclusion

As a whole the management of high performers will be about finding an appropriate way to align organisational goals with the goals of those employees. Both the employee and the organisation’s needs must be mutually satisfied. In organisation with a large number of employees; identifying, managing and retaining talent is not possible without the use of talent management systems where all employee information and HR related tasks are automated.

(hSenid Enterprise XV is a human resource information system that contains all tools required to manage superior talent. The upcoming release of Enterprise XV, will take managing high performers to the next level, by including contemporary techniques in identifying, managing and retaining these valuable assets and integrating all these tools into one single module. More information is available at http://www.hsenidbiz.com/HRM.html.)



(hSenid Business Solutions is the premier HRIS solution provider in Sri Lanka, specialising in HRM solutions. hSenid has deployed customised solutions to a large customer base in Sri Lanka and overseas, addressing the wide, varied and specific requirements of their clients. hSenid Business Solutions have been proven across Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, India, United States of America and Sri Lanka.)