Published: Dec 5, 2024
Time to read: 8mins
Category: Learning

5 Formal Strategies to Help You Overcome Your Talent Hoarding Problem

In a previous blog post, we looked at the reasons behind talent hoarding and how it’s negatively impacting your employees, managers, and the wider organization. Now it’s time to go one step further and uncover five helpful strategies that’ll help boost your talent management program by stopping talent hoarding dead in its tracks.

While it’s certainly intentional in some cases, talent hoarding isn’t usually malicious. Managers want to do what they think is best for their team, so when they have exceptional employees, they often want to do everything in their power to retain those workers. Unfortunately, this often backfires. However, it’s completely possible to overcome even the strongest talent-hoarding tendencies.

Recognizing that there is a problem and implementing a formal corrective plan is the best way to stop hoarding talent and start promoting internal career development.

Consider the following five strategies to overcome a culture of talent hoarding.

A graphic listing the 5 strategies to help organizations overcome talent hoarding

1) Rethink Your Leadership Development

Organizations need to actively develop their managers’ leadership skills so they’ll feel empowered to look beyond their immediate talent needs when their high-performing employees are ready to grow in their careers. But here’s the problem—nearly three-quarters (71%) of HR leaders don’t think their companies are effectively developing their mid-level leaders.

Managers have to learn how to be coaches, advocates, and support systems for their direct reports while simultaneously ensuring that deliverables and performance goals are met. It’s a lot of responsibility and stress to take on, so it makes sense that many managers can get “tunnel vision” and not consider how their top performers’ skills could be positively leveraged outside of their own department.

Newer managers could benefit from being mentored by more experienced people leaders to help them develop their communication skills. Organizations can also leverage skills development platforms or learning management systems to deliver leadership training and track managers’ development over time. For HR, it’s important to foster a work environment that encourages professional development for all employees so leaders feel comfortable and capable of supporting their direct reports’ career journeys.

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"While not everyone aspires to move into a management role, nine in 10 Millennial employees say career growth opportunities are very important. For Gen Z, career growth is also crucial, with 76% reporting that professional development is a major driver for workplace engagement.”

2) Empower Your Teams

Every department has the same common objective of achieving the organization’s overarching goals, yet it’s easy for teams to focus on their specific contributions and not consider how their performance impacts the entire company. Avoid teams working in silos by empowering them to cross-collaborate. Encourage appropriate risk-taking and innovative thinking, and embrace a workplace culture that emphasizes strategic thinking outside of the C-suite. Make your organization a place where people at all levels feel comfortable sharing their ideas. When cross-collaboration and workforce agility is the norm, your managers are less likely to hoard their top talent.

Give teams opportunities to work together on special projects so they understand the immediate value of cross-collaboration. Provide opportunities for employees to grow through training programs, workshops, and professional development courses. Build time into workers’ schedules to attend these courses or participate in collaborative projects so they can reap the benefits without seeing negative impacts on their performance or productivity.

You can also use a skills development platform or workplace LMS that allows employees to access training and development opportunities in the flow of their regular work. The data analytics from these platforms will help you identify learning patterns and see which employees and managers need additional training or support. Use that information to refine your training programs and continue to empower your employees.

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3) Foster Internal Mobility

Fostering a culture that promotes internal mobility lets employees know that they’re valued members of your organization. Workers typically don’t want to do the same exact thing for their entire careers. While not everyone aspires to move into a management role, nine in 10 Millennial employees say career growth opportunities are very important. For Gen Z, career growth is also crucial, with 76% reporting that professional development is a major driver for workplace engagement. Workers want to stretch their skills and grow over time. If they can’t find growth opportunities at their current workplace, they’ll eventually seek them elsewhere.

Utilize your talent management system to show your employees where growth opportunities lie. Give workers the opportunity to search for open roles or special projects that align with their professional interests and the skills they wish to develop. Leverage career pathways to help employees see what courses, tasks, and roles they might pursue to achieve their professional goals.

Your managers should play an active role in their direct reports’ internal mobility and have ongoing discussions with workers about their professional aspirations. Managers should act as coaches to help their employees identify potential opportunities. They can give workers actionable feedback about which courses and projects will help them develop further, and when the time comes for a direct report to make a career shift, their manager should support the change and champion their high performers.

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“Leverage your performance software to schedule and host coaching sessions throughout the year with every employee. These conversations can help employees identify how their professional ambitions align with the organization’s goals.”

4) Create Purposeful Leadership

People care about why they’re doing the work that they do. If your managers start to lose sight of the purpose behind their roles, they might become more susceptible to talent-hoarding behaviors that don’t consider the overall needs of the entire organization. Aligning your leaders’ professional purposes with your organization’s mission can help them feel more connected to the company and see the value in their contributions.

The same holds true for employees who aren’t in leadership roles. If they start to feel like their contributions serve no meaningful purpose, then they might start seeking roles outside of your organization to fill their intrinsic needs.

Leverage your performance software to schedule and host coaching sessions throughout the year with every employee. These conversations can help employees identify how their professional ambitions align with the organization’s goals. You can also use these coaching sessions to support employees and help them see how their work directly impacts the company. Coaching sessions demonstrate to workers that they’re valued members of the organization, and they can be another avenue to discuss internal opportunities when employees are ready to move on to new roles.

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5) Identify High-Potential Employees

A key component of avoiding talent hoarding is identifying employees who are most likely to be hoarded.

Employees who are considered high-potential workers are people who display the drive, ability, and motivation to succeed in future leadership roles. These employees are the most likely to seek development opportunities because they’re intrinsically driven to grow professionally. This also means they’re potentially flight risks if they cannot satisfy their need for growth within your organization, so it’s essential to identify and nurture these high performers before they decide to leave.

You can leverage talent management software to discover which employees are top performers and who has the potential to be your organization’s future leaders. Use employees’ performance review data and link their skills development information to identify opportunities for growth and improvement that will set your high-potential workers up for success. Work with managers to ensure they’re having meaningful performance conversations with their direct reports so your data accurately reflects employees’ potential to lead.

“Internal mobility shows your entire workforce that there are opportunities for growth, and you’ll be more likely to reduce your turnover rates and build a reputation for supporting your workers.”

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Talent Hoarding Hurts… But It Doesn’t Have To!

Talent hoarding hurts your employees and your organization. When workers feel like they’ve outgrown their current responsibilities, they’ll start looking for ways to meet their need for growth. The best-case scenario is for those workers to find new opportunities within your organization. They’ve already demonstrated that they have the ambition and motivation to learn new skills and be successful, and those employees should be retained whenever possible. Internal mobility shows your entire workforce that there are opportunities for growth, and you’ll be more likely to reduce your turnover rates and build a reputation for supporting your workers.

Some managers might hesitate to let go of top talent, but you can combat talent-hoarding tendencies by taking strategic action. Leverage skills development and talent management software to train managers to be coaches and leaders that help their direct reports thrive. When your workforce sees the value in internal mobility, you can reduce talent hoarding and improve your retention rates.

Excel at Talent Management With PeopleFluent

For more on this topic, check out our ebook ‘How to Combat Talent Hoarding and Boost Employee Retention’. Alternatively, schedule a personalized demo to see how PeopleFluent can help you boost employee retention, manage your talent, and improve innovation.

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