Identifying high-potential workers has become crucial as unemployment rates are dropping, and hiring managers are experiencing a decline in active job seekers. These are the workers who add the most value to the company and can even improve the effectiveness of their coworkers with their inspirational performance.

If you are like many businesses, however, you might be finding it difficult to identify, develop, and retain these high-potential workers in your organization. Most companies don’t have a logical way of addressing the process; instead, they rely on their managers’ instincts and observations to decide who has leadership potential.

What is a High-Potential Employee?

Businesses often look at high potential as the ability of an employee to advance up through the ranks, but climbing the ladder to a leadership position doesn’t guarantee that the individual has made a meaningful contribution to the organization as a whole.

While every organization will have a slightly different definition for a “high-potential employee,” most will agree with Hogan Assessments that high potential is ‘the ability to build and lead teams that can consistently outperform the competition’ or someone who has ‘the potential, ability, and aspiration to hold successive leadership positions in an organization’.

How Can You Find These High-Potential Employees?

Neither performance appraisals nor supervisor nominations can be counted on for discovering high-potential employees. These are based mostly on current and past performance and reflect one person’s point of view. You need to uncover high potential using science and analytics:

• Define clearly the behaviors, achievements, and key performance indicators (KPIs) that you believe connect directly to high potential
• Use objective methods to assess performance and be open about everybody’s productivity
• Provide training and support to increase the potential for those who try but do not meet the targets
• Don’t focus only on past or current performance since personality is a better indicator of someone’s potential for a new role, especially if it’s managing people

What are These Personality Traits that Indicate an Employee with High Potential?

While several traits distinguish high-potential employees, a study published in the Harvard Business Review narrows it down to three indicators of high potential: ability, social skills, and drive.

• Ability: performing in a leadership role at a management level will require strategic thinking and the ability to adapt an organization for the long-term future. Vision and imagination are part of this mindset.
• Social skills: employees with high potential must be able to handle themselves when they face increased pressure and adversity by acting with integrity and dignity
• Drive: how hard an individual works–along with their inclination to accept extra duties and more responsibility–will indicate motivation and ambition

Once you have identified these high-potential employees, it’s critical that you make every effort to nurture and develop them, or you risk losing them to a competitor.

Let Outource Help You Find High-Potential Electrical Workers

We can help you find your next electrical professional. Contact the experts at Outsource. We are the largest staffing firm in the nation specializing in the placement of low voltage and electrical talent.