How to manage High Potential employees?

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Since the dawn of time, the world has had individuals who have an extraordinary destiny. Who are these people at High Potential? What sets them apart from Talents? How to recognize them, attract them, motivate them so that they stay in the company?

The question of employees at Haut Potentiel (“HP” or “HiPo” for “High Potential” in the jargon of human resources professionals) is a source of agitation. Extremely talented, with an extraordinary capacity for adaptation, ultra-efficient in their missions, they are a striking lever to boost the competitiveness of a company and its performance. Besides, they are inhabited by a powerful desire to evolve, which can cost their superiors’ nights of sleep, because they have no hesitation in flying to warmer skies!

Directing your efforts to cultivate your HiPo pool can be very profitable for a business. Indeed, the recruitment of an executive externally has a relatively expensive cost. So why go shopping outside when you have promising executives who already have the house spirit, already integrated employees, whose strengths and weaknesses are known?

The whole art of managing High Potentials lies in motivating them enough to retain them by allowing them to flourish and nurture their desire for development.

What are High Potential employees?

It is, first of all, essential to keep in mind that performance and high potential are two very different things. An employee can be very efficient without having the characteristics of a leader and/or be able to occupy a top management position. Thus, an individual called “HiPo” is, undoubtedly, a talent with strong skills mixed with a leader, but above all, a profile with a high margin of evolution in terms of potential.

If the company projects them over time to positions of high responsibility, at the top of the hierarchy (top management, management), it is also wise to consider one day transmitting the General Management of the entire organization to these HiPos. Because if it is unusual to recruit internally during a business succession, it is nevertheless an advantageous solution on many levels when you have such profiles within your organization.

High Potentials vs. Talents

High potential and talent are terms often confused in the business world. However, if talent can be present at all levels of the organization, it is not systematically synonymous with high potential in terms of development and propensity for leadership.

If they share specific characteristics with their talented colleagues, such as:

• ability to adapt: comfortable with developments (technological or otherwise), in times of transformation, new environments, and contexts, e.g.
• Performance in their missions: efficient and focused on the objective, adept at finding a path — sometimes unexplored — to achieve the goals.
• Commitment and sense of responsibility: authentic and innovative, eager to leave a mark, capable of harmoniously combining the company’s history and past with transformations and the future.

the so-called “HiPo” profiles, however, have “additional” capabilities:

• ability to hold senior management positions: natural leadership, charisma, people management, mastery of the stages of change, global and broad vision at different levels of the company, good knowledge of figures, e.g.
• Thirst for learning: a vital need for novelty, both in terms of knowledge, skills, and daily projects and challenges.
• A constant need for new challenges: Thirst for evolution, tendency to quickly get bored if one does not nurture one’s curiosity and ambitions.
• Productivity far above average: ability to prioritize, quickly make correct decisions, spot flaws, anticipate changes, e.g.
• A desire for development: high ambition — up to their potential — without denigrating and crushing others, quite the contrary. The high potential, if he is aware of his abilities, knows that alone, we can achieve nothing. He knows how to bring out the best in everyone and orchestrate talents to lead the group to success.

Why and how to spot them?

Not to worry more than that about High Potential profiles and/or to let them “vegetate” presents a risk and induces a high cost for a company. It is, therefore, essential to carry out management adapted to these profiles, which goes from their detection to their loyalty. This approach must be an integral part of the overall skills management strategy.

Why spot HiPo?

If employees with very high potential are very often challenging to manage personalities, their presence within a company turns out to be a huge asset. Excellent management of these profiles will allow the company to exploit all the possibilities, ensure the sustainability of the entity by preparing the succession, and above all, avoid high costs of recruitment (by avoiding seeing them leave for more promising regions and fulfilling). Because high potential profiles have the following advantages, among others:

• they generate more value for the company: multiplied results and profits, talent optimization, e.g.
• They are inspiring, give meaning: their detailed analysis of the context and the situation — especially during tensions or changes — as well as their notable empathy are a source of reassurance for their colleagues. They dare what others do not dare, open the way, are optimistic, creative. Their enthusiasm is contagious.
• They know perfectly how to understand transformations and conflicts: their extraordinary ability to observe and their ability to step back allows them to perceive the warning signs of any tension — or reluctance — which leads them to take the lead to respond appropriately before the situation worsens.
• They are vectors of innovation: by their thought outside the framework, they are engines of new, disruptive solutions … They capture before everyone the opportunities to seize, feel the wind, detect the needs of the markets, customers, e.g.
• Performance accelerators, they shake up habits and push their colleagues — or even the whole organization — out of their comfort zones.
• Serious buyers during the transfer of the company: capable of taking the reins when the time comes: limited risk, knowledge of the company and the markets, increased employee confidence, safeguarded values, e.g.

How to detect the high potential?

A diploma from a large school is in no way in itself the guarantee of a young person with high potential. As for the various evaluations (assessment center, role plays, scenarios, e.g.), they support an essential tool that we too often fail to use: instinct. Indeed, the latter, coupled with subtle observation of a few particular traits of character are the best allies to identify a collaborator with high potential:

• marked personality, often outgoing, open and curious, hungry for knowledge,
• fair and rapid analysis, particularly sharp synthesis spirit,
• 360-degree vision, with the perspective and clarity necessary for fast and effective decision-making,
• offbeat gaze, with thought and imagination that swarms constantly,
• innovation/novelty radar — a propensity to spot and seize opportunities before everyone else,
• ambition constantly recalibrated upward, a propensity to question and improve,
• high demands on others and intransigence towards themselves, a keen eye for detail, thoroughness, and precision (identifiable by their often wealthy vocabulary, in particular)
• unwavering determination.

How to attract and retain the High Potentials?

HiPo management is, therefore, a strategic issue of great importance for companies that are continually attracting and wanting to retain them. With, as a central vision: the development, competitiveness, and sustainability of the whole company.

Attract employees with high growth potential

Seducing these profiles is not easy. During the recruitment process, it is essential to strike hard and be relevant to hire the right person in the correct position. Some ways to conquer HiPo:

• have a well-established talent and potential management strategy. It will reassure them about the recognition of their potential and support in career development (regular assessment, training course, e.g.).
• Offer career plans from the start while remaining flexible. It is essential to be able to present high development prospects within the structure itself or in a subsidiary entity or even an entity abroad.
• Skills and soft-skills in line with the identity of the company and its needs: recruit the right candidates in positions where they can fully develop and evolve.

Build HiPo loyalty

Once in office, retaining HiPo is difficult. On the one hand, because they are challenging to manage; on the other hand, because they do not hesitate to flick from one job to another, from one company to another, from one challenge to another, according to their ambition and the opportunities that are offered, sometimes called “unstable personalities.” Thus, to prevent them from leaving — possibly with a competitor — it is essential to provide them with an environment in which they can fully develop their potential. It goes, for example, through:

• recognize and reward their potential: gratitude, incentives, promotions, widening of responsibilities, e.g.
• Manage by adapting: great freedom of action to allow them to exploit their full potential, to prove themselves; sufficiently motivating challenges; original projects, e.g.
• Offer development perspectives that match their ambitions: training plans, internal mobility, e.g.
• Allow the sharing and transfer of their knowledge: nurture their need to transmit, to advance others (mentoring, for example).
• Offer support in personal development: coaching and/or training in more delicate areas, in particular, communication or to allow them to assert their charisma …