Talent Or Tenure – What Does Your Organisation Need?

Tenure and Talent are not two assets that often go hand in glove and it’s a reality of many industries and organisations that routes to management are often forged by tenure.

Is this wrong? Should there be a case for talent over tenure?

In many instances, organisations are following and learning from the sporting world; building capability that is team and project-based with the mentality being about selecting the best person for the project irrespective of age or tenure. This makes sense; using one set of skills and talent for a particular project doesn’t necessarily guarantee success on other projects, and therefore it is vital to promote or hire the right talent for a particular project, team, or stage of an organisation’s life.

The benefits for promoting on talent can be relatively clear cut:

• Increased innovation
• Increased agility
• Greater employee engagement
• Providing opportunities for employee growth and development
• Creating a result focussed organisation
• Building a team based on Achievement

But as with anything, it’s never as simple as this, and there will naturally be a downside.

The reverse can be true in engagement – long-serving employees may get disillusioned and even push back when “younger” or “less experienced” employees get promoted ahead of them. Loyal, long-tenured employees may choose to leave when their time served is overlooked leading to a loss of valuable experience, IP and company culture.

What is the solution, and what would you rather have in your organisation?

As with some of the other topics we have discussed on Pro IQ, the solutions revolve around Company Culture and Engagement. Get this right and the organisation can reap the best of both of these worlds; create opportunity for talent but ensure tenure remains bought in and used in the right ways for success.

One of the challenges many organisations face is how to increase employee engagement. We often speak to organisations where the norm sits around 50-65% in employee satisfaction surveys. There are also statistics from Gallup which actually show the problem is worse than what we have heard – one Gallup poll in the US showed as little as 29% of employees were engaged in their employer’s mission and values. Building engagement starts at the top with the leadership of a firm and great leaders know how to get the best out of their employees.

Depending on the relevant scenario an organisation faces, we believe managers should excel at some or all of the following, and we have built our methodology about finding the best in these areas.

• Agility
• Intrapreneurship
• Transformation
• Energise, Motivate and Engage
• Resilience
• Self-Awareness
• Lead, Don’t Do
• Conflict Management
• Analysis and Judgement

Leaders can demonstrate this through many means but often it will be by embracing effective communication; motivating employees to take action and engage with the mission; driving outcomes and aligning expectations and goals across a workforce; creating transparent trusting and open relationships; and developing a culture of clear accountability.

However, in many situations, leaders are not selected by “being great” but by success in previous, often non-managerial, roles or by tenure.

A statistic we have seen indicated that this can happen in 8 out of 10 promotions or leadership hires. This is where the Resourceful Pro methodology kicks in – with the help of organisational psychologists, we have developed a search methodology that measures talent and achievement. We aim to find the best leaders, rather than simply hiring people who have performed similar roles in the past. Whilst past performance is important, it doesn’t guarantee or even predict future performance or talent. Our process utilises predictive tools and a systematic and scientific assessment methodology to discover talented employees and leaders who are best fit to take on manager roles.

To find out more on Resourceful Pro’s Executive Search & Coaching methodologies, please get in touch at info@resourcefulpro.com.au