Potential Employee

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“Potential Employee based Frequently Asked Questions by expert members with experience in Potential Employee. These questions and answers will help you strengthen your technical skills, prepare for the new job test and quickly revise the concepts”



45 Potential Employee Questions And Answers

21⟩ How are potential employees ambitious?

Potential employees are not just career-minded, they are ambitious in a focused way. The best way to get a sense of this is to evaluate their commitment to career progression. Look for signs that they long to accumulate new responsibilities, new successes, additional knowledge and for better or worse, additional recognition.

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22⟩ Give an example of ability according to potential employees?

Example:

Emily has a very easy-going personality that makes her a natural when it comes to dealing with customers. Over the years, she is augmented this innate characteristic with learned skills, so she has become adept at managing difficult conversations with customers. Emily is now able to handle customer complaints and difficulties in a calm, responsive manner and deliver exceptional customer service.

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23⟩ How do potential employees work well with others?

Though your leaders need to be driven, they also must be able to form partnerships with others besides you. This attitude goes beyond amiability, it is a pragmatic, tactical skill that allows them to make better more informed decisions. Lone rangers may be creative and ambitious but they make lousy leaders.

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24⟩ Why would you assess performance and potential in employees and how?

Because employees possess varying degrees performance and potential, you should assess your employees across both dimensions.

☛ High performance or high potential:

1. Regularly exceeds expectations

2. Lacks skills for success at higher level

3. Sets standard of excellence in role

4. Model leadership candidate

☛ Low performance or low potential:

1. Little-to-no aptitude

2. Weak, unsatisfactory performance

3. Above-average aptitude

4. Inconsistent performance

After you have determined which quadrant an employee falls under, you can develop a plan for employee development. Each of these categories requires a specific approach when it comes to discussing development opportunities.

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25⟩ Tell me what will happen to potential and performing employees when the performance is only the criteria employees are evaluated on?

When performance is the only criteria employees are evaluated on, high performers will be the only ones moving up and your high potentials will be moving out.

You should definitely value and reward performance. If your end goal is to build a more robust talent pipeline, though, performance can not be the only point of entry. Advocates working with leadership to profile what constitutes excellence in key roles and communicating that to managers to help them identify high potentials.

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27⟩ List some traits of potential employees?

Here are 5 traits of potential employees:

☛ They know the business.

☛ Others respect them.

☛ They are ambitious.

☛ They work well with others.

☛ They have guts.

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28⟩ Tell me what are development strategies for potential employees?

In an ideal world, every employee in your organization would be a high performer with high potential-but that's obviously not realistic. The appropriate question is how to move employees toward the upper-right quadrant or at least to the high-performance tier.

It is not always possible, nor always the desired goal. There is no one size fits all strategy but a general framework is provided below:

☛ High performance or high potential:

1. Keep them where they are or promote

2. Constant encouragement

3. Challenging assignments

4. Soft skill development

5. Provide autonomy

☛ Low performance or low potential:

1. Performance plan

2. Termination

3. Pair with a High Performer

4. New role better aligned with skills

5. Training

6. Test with more responsibilities

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29⟩ How do potential employees earn the trust and respect of others?

Potentials earn the trust and respect of others by demonstrating high levels of consistency and professionalism. They can be counted on to keep their word and deliver results. They take their goals and responsibilities seriously without taking themselves too seriously.

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30⟩ Please demonstrate aspiration with an example?

Demonstration of aspiration:

Emily might proactively meet with her manager and ask to take on a new assignment that is more challenging than those she typically works on or one that requires more personal responsibility, accountability or decision making. The key is that Emily takes the initiative and identifies herself to her manager as someone ready and willing for more complex challenges.

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31⟩ Tell me what is compelling of potential employees?

The motivation for not disclosing high-potential status also is compelling. Organizations risk creating a three-class system of the haves, the almost and the have-nots and create divisive resentment throughout the organization. Either way, high-potential employees tend to know their potential, whether they are officially told or not. Most organizations today are of the opinion that if the high-potential is not told by them, someone else eventually will.

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32⟩ How would you create a potential employee's pipeline for a stronger company?

Managers play a bigger role in building a pipeline of thriving talent than they may realize and it is increasingly important that you empower them to do this successfully. While employee development is no cakewalk, failure to assess performance versus potential is a very real business problem.

The good news is that it is a solvable problem. It simply takes dedication to identifying your high-potential and high-performing employees, assessing their competencies and attributes and putting them on the path to success. It is time well spent.

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33⟩ Please define the criteria for selecting potential employees?

In defining the criteria for selecting high-potential employees, many organizations link the identification of their talent to current job performance rather than using an inventory of ideal attributes. This method is effective but should be coupled with clear criteria that evaluate and measure future potential. This hybrid approach should not only increase the quality of the candidate but also provide a road map for success as they progress through the program. Moreover, by basing assessment on a combination of current and future skills, organizations will have more confidence in their high-potential employees and measure success with greater accuracy.

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34⟩ How would you identify potential employees?

High potentials tend to rise up out of the crowd and achieve stellar results relative to their peers but to identify them formally, managers must communicate, utilize multiple methods of assessment and compare the results with known criteria that are associated with a specific leadership level. The results of these assessments provide guidelines for training and mentoring a high-potential to take on greater leadership responsibilities and build strengths.

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35⟩ What do high potential employees need?

High potentials need constant encouragement and challenging assignments. Recognition is key.

High potentials tend to be lone wolves, working for themselves and their own success. As such, they want something to execute on a bigger scale. Give them the independence and autonomy that allows them to thrive and engage them with projects that they can take full ownership of.

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36⟩ What should you do with potential employees as they developed understanding of organization?

As they develop a stronger understanding of the organization and their role in it, test the capabilities of high potentials with more projects to manage, new hires to train, put them in charge of an intern or two or offer cross-training opportunities. If they do well, consider moving them into a different role-perhaps one with more responsibilities-in which they may perform better.

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37⟩ Tell me about the best practices for high potential development of employees?

There are two distinct categories of high-potential employees. Late-stage high-potentials include experienced managers ready to make their way into the executive ranks. This group is typically identified as middle or senior managers and participates in a wide variety of formal training: specialized mentoring, executive retreats, personal coaching, real-world action learning, global rotation and more. These senior managers are among the top 10 percent of an organization and significant costs are incurred to prepare them for senior executive roles within the organization.

Early stage high-potentials are different. These new managers and individual contributors are at the beginning of their careers and are identified more by their talent and drive than their track record. Early-stage high-potentials are found in the lower ranks of an organizational structure, and their employers are generally not yet ready to invest the same amount in their formal training and development. While historically organizations have focused primarily on their late-stage leaders, more organizations today are adopting an aggressive program for developing bench strength at all levels. Top-performing organizations in particular now recognize that the earlier potential talent is identified and put into the pipeline, the sooner the entire organization reaps the rewards of more productive and effective leadership.

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38⟩ What are the factors to consider when planning and implementing an integrated program for potential development for employees?

When planning and implementing an integrated program for early-stage high-potential development, there are many factors to consider. The first step is critical but often overlooked. Holistically, the organization must agree on and then support the goals of the proposed development program. Specifically, the organization must justify the program by answering the following questions:

☛ Why do we need a high-potential program?

☛ How will it support our business strategy and improve our competitive advantage?

☛ How will it benefit the organization, the high-potentials and the rest of our employees?

☛ How will we measure the success of the program, and what dollar value will we place on high-potentials at different stages of development?

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39⟩ What is the next challenge for you once the organization's goals for the potential development program for employees are clear?

Once the organization's goals for the program are clear, the next challenge is how to develop a relatively larger group of early stage high-potentials at a fraction of the budget of late stage candidates for senior management.

Here are some cost and resource efficient best practices that top performing organizations use when implementing a successful early stage high potential program:

Specialized leadership development tracks: In a recent Ninth House Leadership Index study on Fortune 500 organizations, most companies reported having a well-defined leadership curriculum in place. Yet a majority of respondents indicated that the curriculum was more voluntary than mandatory in character. Only a few organizations referenced having specialized, highly customized, mandatory leadership development tracks for their high-potential employees. For those that did, there was a tendency to identify the program as being distinctive and highly effective in elevating the leader potential of their organizations.

Multi-disciplinary rotation program: Another experience-based leadership development tool is the rotation of managers across disciplines, divisions and geographies. The fixed-choice component of the same study found less than half (45 percent) of organizations using rotational or developmental assignments as a regular component of their leadership development package. In contrast, significantly more top-performing development practitioners utilize this technique to provide a more diverse base of experience and perspectives for their future leaders.

Unlimited learning opportunities: Most organizations restrict the number of courses available to all employees. This helps both to control costs and to reserve coveted development opportunities for peak performers later in their careers. While it's important to focus high-potential employees' attention on priority topics and not waste time on the mastery of less relevant knowledge, they tend to seek and absorb behavioral skill building at a much greater pace, and top-performing organizations provide them unlimited access to self-paced learning programs that accelerate their growth.

Leverage technology: Recent studies indicate that technology-enhanced learning is now independently sufficient to improve leadership behavior on the job. The combination of synchronous and asynchronous tools and content, especially when paired with reinforced group application, can not only improve the high-potential employee's performance, but can do so at a fraction of the time and cost of classroom training. (Up to 90 percent reductions were reported CNA in 2005).

Action learning: By taking development initiatives outside of the classroom and putting employees to work solving real-world business issues, action learning is taking over as the classroom trainer's interactive simulation. Groups of high-potentials and mentors are put into a situation and must solve the challenge. Many organizations are migrating to this approach as a way to expand high-potentials' perspectives on how the business operates.

Mentoring: According to a recent study by the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), approximately 71 percent of the Fortune 500 use internal mentoring programs to develop high-potential employees. Through pairing with internal senior mentors, high-potentials are introduced to years of knowledge and experience.

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40⟩ Tell me about pay off to the potential employees?

Companies with forward thinking learning organizations have a far greater impact on overall business performance when compared to their peers. Does this mean that identifying high-potentials and deploying a comprehensive program is a guarantee of success? Not necessarily. Nowhere is it written that a promising 26 year old high-potential matures into a successful 55 year old executive leader. Yet only by combining potential talent with access to and time for learning new skills will an organization consistently and cost efficiently develop its high-potential leaders.

It also is important to note that high-potential programs can be controversial to implement. Lack of transparency in the process of selecting high potential employees has been known to cause serious morale issues. Employees who are passed over or deprived of the progress may even leave. There also are concerns regarding the pressure organizations put on high potentials. If the process is not monitored carefully, high-potentials can burn out. Organizations should provide necessary support mechanisms, such as counseling and mentoring.

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