Focus on visibility and challenge to develop high-potential employees. A willingness to provide high-profile stretch assignments to employees identified as high potentials was the top factor differentiating high-performance organizations in the i4cp study. Managers should be encouraged to step outside their silos and collaborate to identify challenging projects that aren’t being addressed, then match high-potential talent to those projects.
Companies also should ensure that high-potential employees have an opportunity to present the results of those projects to the senior leadership team, or even the board of directors. This serves two purposes: it helps the high-potential employee get top-level exposure and it provides an opportunity for the executive team and board to begin developing relationships with those in the talent pipeline.
Intel Corp. has created an online talent marketplace to help project owners and employees to find one another. By the end of 2013, the company’s Developmental Opportunity Tool helped to connect employees with more than 3,000 short-term assignments.
Amreen Madhani, HR manager at Intel, said the organization needed an enterprise-wide solution to combat silos:
“Everyone had their own tools, but there was limited visibility to employees across the organization. DOT met that need.”