TORC

Ulster's Paddy Jackson recently fast-tracked onto the Irish rugby team

High potential individuals (HiPo’s),  can be found in any section/team in an organisation.

These are the individuals whose contributions are often a multiple of their run-of-the-mill fellow workers.

They constitute a distinct subcategory of any succession planning programme – ie. those  2-5% of the workforce, deemed promotable by 2 levels within a 4 year timeframe.

The challenge for an organisation is how to fast-track them to roles that maximally leverages their contribution – without demotivating the rest of the staff.

The key guideline here is to ensure that any HiPo programme doesn’t exist in isolation – but is anchored to one’s normal succession planning framework.

Specifically, this means it should embody all the normal rigours involved in establishing talent pools for each potential opening, developing competencies to match each targeted role, and operating open transparent competition in the filling of all jobs, etc.

And, of course, it should reference only those potential job openings projected from the strategic plan (so one is always starting with the end in mind, targeting the specific future needs of the organisation).

The key wrinkle in a HiPo programme, of course, is that one is looking at a 2-level jump rather than the more normal 1-level or lateral level move that dominates the more normal succession planning framework.

This means a HiPo individual may well be leapfroging past his present boss within a relatively short timeframe.

Accordingly, then it is usually the boss’s boss that is involved in establishing any development programmes in readying the HiPo individual(s) for the various talent/bench pools being targeted.

But, the key takeaway should be: if you’re embarking on the establishment of a HiPo programme, think of it as an add-on to, and not a replacement for, your normal succession planning framework.

PS. For related Torc case studies, please click on the following links:
1. Career Mobility & Talent Management
2. Assessing Organisation Skill Levels
3. 360-Degree Feedback & 1st 100-Days
4. Coaching With Psychometric Tools