the ultimate guide to

high-potential
identification

welcome to brighter
Contents
1. Introduction 2

2. Who are high-potential employees? 3

Mercer | Mettl’s High-potential
Assessment Framework

3. What is high-potential identification? 4

4. What are the major roadblocks to 5

HiPo identification?
Unclear definition of ‘high-potential’
Performance versus potential
Assessing candidates subjectively

5. Why is there a need for HiPo 7

employee identification?
Build a HiPo talent pool
Retain HiPo employees
Develop HiPo employees
Reward HiPo employees

6. What are the various tools to measure 9

HiPo employees?
ACDC
Virtual ADC
Traditional
Blended ADC
Assessment Battery

360 Degree Feedback

7. Conclusion 11

8. How Can Mercer | Mettl Help? 12

Our Process
Our USPs
Introduction

It is a well-accepted maxim that the greatest asset of a company is its people. Employees play a critical
role in driving organizational growth. The primacy of continual employee growth and development
opportunities has been a chief concern for human resource professionals. Not only is continuous growth
beneficial for the individual, but it is also in the best interest of the organization. L&D professionals
often stand on opposite ends of the spectrum - the ones who believe that learning and development
opportunities should be available to all, and the others who feel that special programs or attention should
be accorded to high-potentials of the organization for better returns. It has thus become essential for
organizations to be future-ready, with a talent pipeline prepared to take on more senior responsibilities
and face future challenges, irrespective of their stance on the subject.

While organizations expect all their employees to function to the best of their caliber, it is a generally
accepted premise that an organization is driven and sustained by a select few high-potential employees.

“The top 20% of your workforce accounts

for 80% of organizational output”, as stated
in Harvard Business Review in its case study
titled ‘What Science Says About Identifying
High-potential Employees,’ 2017.

Thus, identifying employees who drive the organization towards success is becoming crucial for
optimizing the workforce and better people management. With an increasing need to continually evolve
in times of rapid transformation and limited resources, identifying and developing your star performers is
a pressing priority for HRs and line managers.

2
 Who are High-potential
employees?
A high-potential is an employee who possesses the intellect, drive, agility, and leadership orientation to
successfully undertake broader and complex roles in the future. High-potentials are part of the larger pool
of top talent in any organization.

HiPo employees drive the overall business performance by making significant and consistent
contributions, delivering superior levels of performance while outperforming others, and exhibiting
behavior and skills that align with the company’s culture and vision.

Mercer | Mettl’s High-potential assessment framework

Identify HIPOs who possess intellect, drive, agility, and leadership orientation to successfully
take broad and complex in future

Intellect Drive Agility Lead

Definition

High intellect to Relentless Ability to move quickly Potential to lead both

successfully handle determination to and easily, effectively internal and external
challenges & take learn, grow and handling ambiguity stakeholders to achieve
effective decisions succeed. and not giving up. organizational goals.

1. Strategic 3. Drive to Excel 6. Navigating 8. Propensity to

Thinking Ambiguity Lead
Predisposition
Ability to think long Strong will to Ability to handle to lead others
term and take a achieve excellence unclear or by consistently
broader perspective in what one sets out unpredictable motivating and
while setting priorities to do. situations inspiring them
and the way forward. comfortably & to achieve their
demonstrating the personal and
Competencies

4. Learning Orientation ability to manage organization goals.

2. Critical Decision Tendency to one’s work even
Making internalize a learning without having all the
necessary details. 9. Stakeholders
mindset & constantly
Ability to solve Management
seek opportunity to
problems and make Ability to build
learn. 7. Adaptability
critical decisions professional
after considering Ability to adjust networks
all available data & adapt oneself & personal
and derive valid 5. Initiative Taking to change, not relationships
conclusions based on allow oneself to within and outside
evidence and logical Tendency to take the
get bogged down the organization
relationship. initiative and seek
when situations to ensure
responsibility without
are dynamic and individual as well
being forced to do so.
constantly evolving. as organizational
success.

3
What is High-potential
identification?
High-potential identification is a process that intends to discover individuals who possess competencies
that are essential to succeed in more evolved roles for personal and organizational advancement. The
process aims to find employees who demonstrate a higher possibility of outperforming other role holders
and depict a differentiated leadership/role potential. High-potential employees display not only high
levels of competencies for their current role but also exhibit a high future propensity for taking up bigger
responsibilities and challenges.

It plays a significant role in making your workforce

future-ready, enabling your organization to prepare
for plugging in future talent gaps.

4
Major roadblocks to
HiPo identification
To classify employees as highly capable and carry out a successful HiPo identification process,
organizations typically rely on individual performance coupled with manager feedback. While these might
be conventional practices, they are not without limitations.

Unclear definition of a ‘High-potential’

Organizations often don’t focus on future competencies. Their competency framework, if at all they have
one in place, usually focuses on present business requirements and fails to acknowledge the changing
business landscape and future competencies aligned to it. The absence of a clear definition of a HiPo
employee for your organization, and it could vary based on the industry, size, etc., leads to ambiguity
on who and what competencies qualify as a high-potential. Most organizations arrive at a loosely
defined competency framework based on the subjective opinions of only a handful of people within the
organization. They, therefore, struggle to objectively identify specific attributes/competencies they would
need their high-potentials or future workforce to demonstrate. As a result, no one has a clear picture of the
characteristics required for assessing the potential.

Performance versus potential

Yet another commonly found method of identifying HiPos is evaluating the current performance. Many
organizations confuse performance with potential, two concepts that are often used interchangeably
but don’t always mean the same thing. While performance takes into account past accomplishments,
potential, on the other hand, is forward-looking.

Rough Future Consistent

Diamond Star Star

Inconsistent Key Current

Potential

Player Player Star

Talent High
Professional
Risk Professional

Performance

9 Box Model
5
Considering that the expectations and demands of the future role might be starkly different from the
one being currently performed, organizations can put their high performing employees in a position
that might lead to unfavorable results. These results may stem from their inability to cope with the
transition or the lack of skills required to excel in that particular role. While performance and potential
are not mutually exclusive in a way that potential includes elements of performance, a high performer
doesn’t guarantee a high-potential.

Confusing performance and potential can be an expensive miss for an organization, pushing high-
potential employees to look for alternative roles or even switch jobs, due to the absence of challenging
roles and associated recognition or placing high-performers in positions they might not be equipped
to handle.

Assessing Candidates Subjectively

Organizations often rely on the manager’s feedback to assess an individual’s performance for
appraisals and promotions. That this practice is mostly subjective and prone to bias is known and
can be detrimental to the process of high-potential identification. Relying solely on the manager’s
feedback means that candidates are being nominated for subjective reasons rather than scientific and
standardized tools.

The amalgamation of these factors has left many organizations struggling while designing a successful
strategy for high-potential identification for organizational planning and talent development.

Connect with an expert

6
The need for
High-potential
employee
identification

Regularly assessing your internal talent pool is critical

for better people management. While new talent
could be recruited for the same positions, instead of
training existing employees, there is a caveat that
recruits would take longer to understand the business
needs before being productive for their companies.
From an organizational perspective, recruitment is
always more expensive than development.

HiPo Identification, Succession Planning, Leadership

Development, and Training Need Identification
go together with the broader construct of future
readiness. While the objectives may differ based on the
organizational requirement at a given time, all of them
stem from the same need, which is the identification
of a talent pool and deployment of developmental
interventions to ensure organizational success in the
long run.

High-potential employees prefer to be challenged

at the workplace and are often aware that they are
outperforming their peers. Often, acknowledging their
contribution in one way or the other - providing them
better learning opportunities, promoting or appraising
them, placing them in strategic or more challenging
roles, training them to be future leaders, etc. - can help
retain these individuals.

High-potentials make sizable contributions to the

present and future success of the organization. It is
thus incumbent upon organizations to ensure that
they nurture and utilize this talent pool appropriately.

7
Build a High-potential
talent pool
Investing in your high-potentials can help you
build a talent pipeline in case of loss of talent
owing to attrition, retirement, or any other
such issues. A high-potential talent pool can be
accessed when the need arises to fill a critical
“When performance
business position, create a new business unit or
team, consider employees for leadership pipeline, is the only criteria
or carry out succession planning.
employees are
evaluated on, high
Develop High-potential
employees performers will be
HiPo identification provides organizations the the only ones moving
opportunity to develop their HiPo employees
by placing them in advanced developmental up - and your high-
programs to prepare them for future roles, expose
them to better opportunities, put them on fast
track training programs, or assign them to
potentials will be
special assignments that provide advanced
growth opportunities.
moving out.”
Brian Kight
Retain High- Director of Performance
potential employees at Focus 3
With attrition being one of the most prominent
challenges confronted by organizations, losing
a high-potential employee can be a significant
setback for any organization. High-potential
identification provides organizations with
objective data to focus their efforts on retaining
the right people. Reward High-potential
By engaging high-potential employees, employees
organizations take note of their need for
Promotions and appraisals are powerful tools to
achievement and advancement, giving them a
reward high-potential employees and keep them
reason to stay in their current organization.
motivated. Traditionally, performance has been the
central focus of appraisals. While performance has
and should always be rewarded, identifying and
rewarding potential is equally critical. Potential
data serves as an enabler to better people’s
decisions. Since high-potential employees are
often driven, agile and ambitious individuals,
promotions become an extremely effective tool
in ensuring that they are motivated to work to the
best of their ability, delivering consistent results.
The addition of potential to already existing
performance parameters, thus, allows you to make
appraisal decisions objectively and accurately.
8
Tools to measure
HiPo employees
With the focus shifting on combining potential and performance, the conventional methods are giving
way to more dynamic ones. High-potential employee identification is an essential component of the
shifting global work environment filled with new challenges and uncertainties.

These High-potential identification tools are designed, keeping the present business environment in mind.
While high-potential identification is often carried out for select employees based on seniority, these
highly flexible and customized tools allow your organization to implement HiPo identification at scale
across all employee levels (frontline and managers) timely and cost-efficiently.

Assessment & Development Centers (ACDC)

Often confused with one another, assessment centers and development centers, both use tasks,
assessments, and exercises to assess the workforce. While assessment centers primarily match an
employee to a particular role, development centers are used for employee development. Together, they
make an excellent tool for identifying high-potential employees.

Assessment and development centers combine roleplays, situational judgment tests, presentations, group
discussions, interviews, simulations, psychometric and aptitude tests, and other such techniques to make
critical people decisions. This allows assessors to objectively evaluate candidates in situations that imitate
real-life workplace scenarios and observe skills and behaviors specific to the defined competencies.

ACDCs can be undertaken in the following ways:

Virtual ACDC
A complete suite of online programs that simulate traditional ACDCs for
a holistic understanding of employees, they are time and cost-efficient
without any logistical hassles. The biggest USP of virtual ACDCs is their
instant and automated reports, along with reduced overhead expenses.
These are best suited for mid-level managers and individual contributors.

Traditional ACDC
Conducted in an offline setting with a dedicated team of assessors,
traditional ACDCs are on the decline because of high costs, complex
logistics, and the time taken in implementation and obtaining results.

Blended ACDC
A better alternative for traditional assessment centers - blended ACDCs
combine the best of technology and human touch by bringing together
on-field programs and online assessments for an integrated approach
to talent management. These are best suited for mid to senior-level
leadership profiles.
9
360-Degree feedback
A holistic process where an employee’s superiors,
peers, direct reports, and, sometimes, even customers,
evaluate an individual’s performance and potential.
360-degree feedback tools are often used for
performance appraisals and promotions but can be
adapted to look at potential as one of the metrics,
through additional indicators of potential that
stakeholders use to evaluate employees on.

Assessment battery
A comprehensive battery of assessments can quickly
help organizations zero in on their high-potential
employees by evaluating employees on their
personality and ability. Best suited for entry-level
employees and first-time managers, the assessment
battery can be used as part of advanced tools for a
holistic understanding of an employee’s potential.

Connect with an expert

10
Conclusion

High-potential identification contributes heavily to the

future readiness of organizations and hence is critical to
the overall organizational strategy.

Identifying, developing, and retaining future potentials can significantly add to an organization’s capacity
to cope up with a transition in the present and future. High-potential identification needs to be driven by
a comprehensive view of performance while taking into account an extensive understanding of a person’s
future role in the organization.

With skillsets, roles, and technology becoming obsolete in less than three years, businesses realize the
significance of high-potential employees in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world.
The current war on talent due to the shortage of skills makes high-potential identification of existing
employees even more crucial. The right strategy, tools, processes, and partners can help organizations to
identify untapped potential and make high-potential identification an indispensable part of their
business strategy.

11
Mercer | Mettl Can Help?

A Structured process for

identifying HiPo employees
The process of HiPo identification can be different
for different organizations, just like the meaning of
HiPo. Organizations need to undertake a twofold
approach for HiPo identification programs - one
that enables them to reflect inwardly for their
business vision and goals and the second that
takes into purview the business environment.

Mercer | Mettl’s solution for high-potential

identification helps organizations in the accurate
recognition of high-potentials through a structured
process:

Sensing Exercise
A sensing exercise is the first step towards a
coherent high-potential identification process. It
involves understanding the building block of the
program, the roles, levels, and competencies under
consideration.

Mercer | Mettl handholds organizations by

interacting with key stakeholders who are vested in
the high-potential identification process. Focused
group discussions and visionary workshops are
an integral part of the sensing exercise to identify
essential competencies and tool composition.

12
Employee evaluation
Once competencies have been identified, our suite of tools is best matched to the organization’s
complexity and cost requirements. Mercer | Mettl’s customizable and scalable tools, namely virtual and
blended assessment and development centers, 360-degree feedback, and a comprehensive battery of
assessments, etc. can be used independently or in conjunction to identify untapped potential.

Talent pool finalization

Mercer Mettl’s swift and automated reports help organizations identify the accelerated talent pool, initiate
talent mobility, and implement developmental strategies.

Organizational & individual developmental plans

Given that potential cannot be equated with readiness, the organization must invest in developmental
initiatives through Individual & Organizational Development Plans (IDPs/ODPs) for the identified pool to
equip them to take on future roles and responsibilities. Mercer Mettl provides organizations with ODPs
that pronounce the way forward and IDPs that help bridge the gaps obtained from employee evaluations.

Result validation
Mercer | Mettl’s end-to-end solution for high-potential identification of employees helps organizations
validate results through predictive modeling and correlation exercises.

Connect with an expert

13
Why
choose us?
Mercer | Mettl’s high-
potential solution is
scalable.

It can be customized for all levels of your

employees throughout their employee life-cycle,
starting from frontline employees to managers and
other senior positions.

With a variety of tools to offer, Mercer | Mettl

designs quality assessment solutions tailored to
your organization’s needs of complexity that are
quick, reliable, and cost-effective.

Mercer | Mettl’s deep analytical rigor and

specialized expertise come together to provide
every organization with a developmental plan for
its current and future needs.

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About Us
At Mercer I Mettl, our mission is to enable organizations to
make better people decisions by making credible people
decisions across two key areas: Acquisition and Development.
Since our inception in 2010, we have partnered with 2900+
corporates, 31 sector skill councils/ government departments,
and 15+ educational institutions across 90+ countries.

Contact Us

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