One of the things that we hear in our business all the time is the need to build management talent from within. So often companies will spend 20 to 30% of salaries to enable a recruitment company to find them suitable talent. First of all there is nothing wrong with this and nor should recruitment firms be blamed for this. In fact there needs to be a hybrid model so talent is being recruited as well as developed from within.

Hiring people from within has inherent challenges such as being promoted to now having to managing or coaching  who used to be your peers. Second, many people who were hired from within our first time managers ;therefore, the first time manager literally cuts their teeth often at the expense of relationships and the company. Last, hiring and developing talent from within also presents I believe to be the greatest opportunity to increase the ability to recruit as well as retain.

Here is a five step model the you can utilize to fill your management pipeline of talent:

1. Measure employees levels of engagement, attitude, motivation, how they feel about their progression of their career, etc.
2. Analyze these measurements on a bi-monthly if not quarterly basis to identify talent that may be going off the tracks or those who are on track.
3. Implement an emerging coaching program where high potential talent is identified as possible future management personnel. Train these people in the art of having the coaching conversation with peers when in fact they may not have the title or organizational responsibility on paper. These conversations will prepare future management to gravitate smoothly in the future leadership positions.
4. Implement a mentor based coaching program were leaders are coaching 1 to 2 individuals and providing them specific insight to leadership responsibilities and what it takes to be a successful manager.
5. Facilitate coaching conversation sessions. What I mean by this is often future leaders will not have conversations due to discomfort with their peers because they psychologically feel like they have not earned the right. In addition, present managers and leaders will struggle with things such as confrontation or conflict. The coaching conversation is sacred to the process of developing talent. When we don't have these conversations that silence can be extremely loud in terms of its message to employees

Building future leaders today accomplishes some very fundamental business imperatives. First, it greatly reduces the recruitment costs. Two, by building talent from within it opens people's minds to opportunities and prompts them to stay at the organization. These are the very people who will also recruit into the organization for the company as they see more opportunities. Last and probably the biggest opportunity, is the transition of of people already inside the organization. There is so much tribal knowledge often to be learned when joining a new company; therefore, internal talent if developed beforehand will possess that tribal knowledge to be successful.

 If you are interested in building an emerging coaching program: click here