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How To Identify and Develop Internal Talent

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Human Resources

08 June 2022

A talent, by definition, is a set of natural skills and aptitude someone possesses. And in your company, you need to identify people with the talents you need to progress and move forward.


As soon as you see there’s room for more talent to join your company, you think of a new candidate that has that talent. While in most cases, the best talent or candidate comes from within your company and current team!


Identifying and developing internal talent in your business shows your employees that you value and care about their careers. And if a person doesn’t see that he’s developing himself in your company, he will leave for another one, which provides that development.


In this article, we will walk you through the process of identifying internal talent (the talent you already have in your company). Moreover, we will provide you with ways of developing the talent of your people with potential.



                             Identifying Internal Talent


First things first, you need to identify the internal talents and then find ways of developing them. Sounds tricky, right? Maybe, but worry not! We will briefly show you how in the following part of this blog post.


To identify your company’s top talent, you must first identify the essential characteristics of your success. These characteristics might differ from one organization or department to another. For instance, communication and collaborative skills might be crucial in the sales department, while creativity and independency might rank first in another.


Only when you have a prepared list of characteristics based on which you can decide who’s doing well at what, it’s time to move to the next phase; that’s the spotting phase!


 In other words, you need to be answering these two questions:

1. Who has been the most successful at this job?

2. Which talents/ skills did they use to achieve this success?


You would want to put your eyes on the skills that helped your employees succeed at a particular project. What you are searching for are specific ‘patterns’ and talents that may be more significant than the others.


Also, find ways to incubate and cultivate these traits in all your other employees. Your future talented employees are those who display these characteristics most consistently and who deliver superior results!


Let’s now move to the main dish!



                         Developing Internal Talent


Many employers make one big mistake: put an employee in a particular box called their job!


They tie them down to specific job descriptions with limited access and space for the company’s development and self-flourishment. Be cautious as this will make your employees bored and unengaged. Lastly, they’ll go on autopilot most of the time and their creative soul will be buried in the paperwork!


That’s partly why challenges & development should be a hosted policy in your company!


Identifying and developing talents within your company will create a career-focused culture. And rather than just getting the job finished, your employees would put their heart and mind into their work and improve the work process because that would benefit them in the long term.


Here are some ways you can develop internal talents within your company:



Encourage Your Employee to Develop Their Daily Skills


Encouraging development must be a lifestyle in the life of your employees. You can do that in many ways: it might be motivating them to study or acquire new skills, offering them the opportunity to attend conferences that will help them refine their current skills and/or pick up new ones. And with the changes that the pandemic imposed on the world, you can provide them with access to online training and professional resources.



Give your Employees Space for Development


Create a space to do tasks that are not related to their roles. Also consider alternatives such as job rotation, job shadowing and auditing executive meetings, or putting them in a non-profit position for a few months.



Test Their Agility


Give your employees a task or a project to deliver in a short period. Break down the task into fast moves and focus intensely on solving a problem. Employees will have the chance to reflect on what happened so they can make improvements, and you will see talent emerge.



Allow for Failure and its Resulting Growth


Albert Einstein once said, “failure is success in progress”.


Failure might result in two opposite directions: total despair or a springboard for growth. Teach your employees to think that failure is not the end but the beginning of new dimensions and directions.


Assign assignments to your employees in which failure is tolerated and welcomed and are one or two levels above their status. Make sure to select the right person for this role. The key here is planning and working with the right mindset.



                                                   Conclusion


In a nutshell, hiring new talents might be the why your employees aren’t responding well or engaged as much as you want them to be. Identifying and developing internal talent is an important strategy to pursue. Moreover, it will help your company grow and flourish.




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