04 Dec 5 Ways to Leverage Hidden Talent

You invest considerable expense trying to identify top talent. But failing to bring out the best they have to offer not only lets a lot of that investment go to waste, it also hurts your company’s performance. Here are five tips to help assure that the talent you bring performs to full potential:

1. Hire inherent talent

You should do everything to hire talent that has been predetermined in the first place. Talent is hard to develop so getting a solid foundation of it into your organisation should always be the starting point. Large applicant pools of graduates will yield hidden gems and contain future leaders. Don’t take shortcuts in chopping down the numbers based on narrow, potentially outdated criteria as it may weed out the type non-traditional talents can find to move your business forward. Early identification of both intelligence and personality is key and this can be done through predictive analytics throughout the entire selection process.

2. Know your selection criteria

Some competencies are harder to measure than others, and not all are relevant in determining real performance or potential for a given role. Know the competencies that help screen for your ideal candidate before you begin, allowing you to move fast once you’ve identified them – so you don’t lose them to your competitors!

3. Fit is king

Cognitive abilities and skill sets are critical for predicting performance for a given role – but they are not everything! How well a candidate fits into your organisation’s culture is just as important as their strengths and weaknesses. For example, people who flourish in a visionary and innovative culture may perform miserably in a large corporate environment.

4. Right leader at the right time

Not everyone can be a leader and certainly not all at once, but understanding situational leadership can bring out those traits within your talent. The ability to identify the right leader for the right situation is a highly efficient way of leveraging talent. Involving your talent by encouraging them to take turns taking charge can foster their leadership quality in the long run.

5. Continued coaching

Continued improvement of skills through training and development is the only way to keep up to date in this fast-paced business world. Most organisations are fully aware of this and have incorporated formal regimes into their human resources practices. But you can go one step further with dynamic and impromptu coaching on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Having goals also goes a long away in keeping track of development.