Release the Energy of HR High Potentials. Let Them See HR Leaders in Action

Posted on Friday, December 11, 2009 by Frank Roche

Your HR high potentials are aren’t human capital, they’re solid gold.

An HR high potential employee is worth one-and-a-half times average HR employee. And they do 96% more than the slackers.

Do you think that your salary increase budget of 2.8%, the lowest we’ve seen in 25 years, is going to keep their attention? Not likely. Know what will? Letting your high potentials see HR leadership in action.

HR Thought Leaders at The Conference Board’s Senior HR Executive Conference
I spent two days listening to leading HR executives talk about what they’re doing in their organizations. Here’s a theme for you: Not one of them talked about “getting a place at the table.” That kind of talk is for losers. For pretenders. At The Conference Board’s sessions, executives talked about what works. And why.

You know who else should have been in the room besides me? Your HR high potentials. They’re the ones you want to reward. They’re the ones you want to encourage. They’re the ones who you want to bubble up the big ideas. “HiPo’s have choices,” said Stephen R. Fussell, Senior Vice President, Human Resources at Abbott Laboratories. “They have more than double the chance to move — even in this market.”

You want your HiPo’s to stay. Besides all the good things you do at your shop, letting them attend sessions like The Conference Board’s Senior HR Executive Conference is a way to stimulate their thinking and providing them the best ideas in the HR business.

Coming up next: Lessons from the Senior HR Executive Conference, including Agile Workplace (Unilever), Deploying Talent to the Point of Highest Return (Xerox), Billions of Moments of Happiness (Coca-Cola), and a View of the Future (Futurist.com).

More Reading About the Conference
Twitter feed
The Future of HR: Agile Workplaces on HR Ringleader
Job Titles on Punk Rock HR
The HR Executive Conference: Day 1 on Steve Boese’s HR Technology

User Comments

fran melmed

Dec 11th, 2009

only time i’ve been glad to read or hear “seat at the table.”
f
Frank Roche

Dec 11th, 2009

@Fran This might very well be the last time I write that phrase…unless I’m using it as a proxy for “You’re clueless.”
Chris Ferdinandi – Renegade HR

Dec 12th, 2009

On the subject of HiPo’s, I often wonder how many would-be HiPo’s come across as average to subpar performers because they’re either:

1. In the wrong position that isn’t well aligned with their passions and strengths, or…

2. Poorly managed, and thus demotivated.

I know there’s a lot of HR pros who would say you need to show you’re a HiPo before you get the rewards HiPo’s get. The whole chicken and the egg thing.

But a big part of me believes that if you treat all of your employees like they’re rockstars until they prove that they’re not (instead of the other way around), you’d start seeing a lot more rockstars in your organization.

Thoughts?
Chris Young

Dec 14th, 2009

Great suggestions for engaging and rewarding High Potentials when typical monetary compensation isn’t always possible. I featured your post in my Rainmaker ‘Fab Five’ blog picks of the week (found here: http://www.maximizepossibility.com/employee_retention/2009/12/the-rainmaker-fab-five-blog-picks-of-the-week-1.html) to help them out with ideas for keeping their HiPos onboard.

Be well Frank!