Every organisation has hidden gems—high-potential employees (HiPos) who have the drive, skills, and leadership qualities to take their business to new heights.
Well, did you know that HiPos are 91% more valuable to organisations than their peers? In today’s competitive business landscape, finding and developing this talent is key to long-term growth and innovation.
Why Finding High-Potential Employees Matters
Discovering your HiPos pays off in several key areas:
Leadership Succession Planning: HiPos are your future leaders. By finding them early, you can develop them to take on critical leadership roles so that when your current leaders move on or retire, there is a smooth transition and continuity of vision.
Driving Innovation and Growth: HiPos are creative problem solvers who can help you innovate whether that’s developing new products, improving processes or spotting new market opportunities. They have the strategic mindset to take your business forward.
Boosting Engagement and Retention: When you invest in developing your HiPos, you show your employees that you value them and are investing in their career growth. This can increase engagement and retention as employees are more likely to stay with an organisation that recognises and develops their potential.
On the other hand, failing to find and develop hidden talent can result in missed opportunities, stagnant growth, and increased turnover as your best and brightest leave.
Key Characteristics of High-Potential Employees
So, what exactly sets HiPos apart from their peers? While each individual is unique, HiPos tend to have some common traits:
• Strong performance in their current role
• Learning agility and adaptability to change
• Leadership potential, including initiative and influence
• Emotional intelligence and ability to collaborate
• Alignment with company values and intrinsic motivation
When evaluating potential it’s important to look beyond just technical skills and consider these key soft skills and attributes that indicate an employee’s ability to grow and take on more responsibility.
Strategies to Find High-Potential Employees
1. Use Data-Driven Tools
Use formal assessments like the High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI), which evaluates traits like conscientiousness, curiosity, and risk tolerance that are strongly correlated with leadership potential. Talent mapping is another useful tool for visualising your current talent pool, identifying skills gaps, and projecting future needs.
2. Observe Key Behaviors
Pay attention to how employees approach challenges, solve problems and innovate in their daily work. HiPos will consistently exceed expectations, take ownership of projects and find ways to improve processes even without being asked.
3. Solicit Feedback
Use 360-degree feedback from peers, managers and direct reports to get a holistic view of an employee’s performance and potential. This will reveal strengths and growth areas that may not be apparent from a supervisor’s perspective alone.
4. Engage in Career Conversations
Have open discussions with employees about their career goals and aspirations. HiPos will typically have a clear vision for their career trajectory and a strong drive to take on new challenges and leadership roles.
5. Focus on Soft Skills
In addition to job-specific evaluations, assess employees’ emotional intelligence, communication skills and ability to work in a team. These skills are critical for effective leadership and can be the deciding factor when comparing two strong performers.
Developing High Potential Talent
Once you’ve identified your HiPos, it’s important to develop their potential with targeted strategies like: thoughtfully
• Personalised Development Plans tailored to their unique strengths and growth areas.
• Stretch Assignments that push them outside their comfort zone and build new skills.
• Mentoring Programs that pair them with experienced leaders for coaching and guidance.
• Frequent Feedback to help them track their progress and course correct as needed.
• Formal Leadership Training to build core leadership competencies.
The most effective development plans incorporate a variety of learning methods to keep HiPos engaged and growing.
Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them
Identifying and developing high-potential talent does come with some challenges. A few common pitfalls to watch out for include:
• Over-reliance on gut instinct rather than objective criteria and data
• Unconscious biases in performance reviews and assessments
• Misalignment between your talent criteria and actual business needs
To mitigate these risks, ensure that your identification process includes both quantitative and qualitative measures, involves multiple perspectives to limit individual biases, and regularly calibrates your definition of potential to align with evolving organisational goals.
Start Building Your Future-Ready Workforce
The business case for investing in high-potential talent is clear. Finding and developing your hidden gems can build a pipeline of future leaders, drive innovation, and boost engagement and retention across your workforce.
The most successful companies are proactive about talent identification and development. They continuously assess their bench strength, identify talent early, and invest in developing it. In a time of tough competition for top talent, this ability to develop talent from within is a major competitive advantage.
But it all starts with taking the first step to uncover the hidden talent that already exists within your organisation. With the right tools and mindset, you can start identifying your HiPos and developing them for leadership today.
So what are you waiting for? Your future-ready workforce is waiting!
Key Takeaways
- High-potential employees (HiPos) are key to long-term organisational growth and innovation.
- HiPos are your future leaders, innovators, and engagement and retention drivers.
- Look for HiPos who have strong performance, learning agility, leadership potential, emotional intelligence, and alignment with company values.
- To identify HiPos, use data-driven tools, observe key behaviours, solicit feedback, engage in career conversations, and focus on soft skills.
- Develop HiPos with personalised development plans, stretch assignments, mentoring programs, frequent feedback, and formal leadership training.
- When identifying HiPos, avoid overreliance on gut instinct, unconscious biases, and misalignment between talent criteria and business needs.
Invest in your high-potential talent to build a pipeline of future leaders, drive innovation, and boost engagement and retention.
