Strength-Based Approaches Can Help Develop Internal Talent Pipelines

8 key strengths organizations should look for across their talent pool in 2022

The workplace is evolving rapidly. Even before the pandemic, business leaders and other experts were stressing the need for greater digitization, agility, collaboration and more. The need to transform is now a present-day imperative complicated by the Great Resignation, which continues to lure away front-line managers. Organizations have no time to lose in terms of filling roles needed to transform, compete and lead in 2022.

Unfortunately, many organizations reach for external talent first. And with 80% of job seekers wanting to understand a company’s culture before accepting offer, as a recent Cappfinity/YouGov survey revealed, organizations need to be especially careful about who they hire, particularly at every level. There are many dependencies that come with external hiring.

Accepting some uncertainty is, of course, the nature of recruiting, but it behooves organizations to also consider the talent they’ve already seen in action firsthand—their existing employees. While brand new hires come with the promise of experience earned outside of the business, identifying strengths within existing employees and developing them in-house brings measurable benefits.

Organizations that tap their internal talent pools can often fill open roles much more quickly than if they were to hire from outside the organization. Not only are you able to identify someone, whose strengths and weaknesses are known (and who you can then train accordingly), the internal candidate is presumably already familiar with many of the inner workings of the organization—the people, the processes—which makes for shorter transitions and faster routes toward success. Indirectly, such promotions demonstrate a company’s willingness to nurture existing talent and that career growth opportunities do exist, which can serve as a highly effective defense against attrition.

Hiring from within is not without its challenges. An existing employee may not realize they have the skills required for the next level of the career ladder. It’s also quite common for employees to have the needed skills in abundance, but they’re hampered by imposter syndrome, which—despite the talents and accomplishments they’ve demonstrated in the workplace—may cause them to view others as more intelligent or competent or perhaps just more deserving of that promotion.

This is where strengths-based assessments can be tremendously useful. It’s important for an organization to know what its employees are intrinsically good at and what energizes them—elements of character that may not be visibility apparent given the limitations of their current roles.

But what strengths will pandemic-weary organizations need on hand today, tomorrow and the months and years ahead? Using extensive research, including a meta-analysis of over 100 success frameworks relevant to leadership roles, as well as an analysis of data from over 5,000 leaders and managers, Cappfinity identified eight key strengths organizations should look for across their talent pool in 2022:
 

In closing, tools that provide insight into an employee’s strengths, weaknesses, competencies and potential are readily available for organizations looking to upskill their existing workforce. Some solutions can even provide ways for talent leaders to observe behavior and or performance change over time. Once hiring managers understand their internal talent, they can pinpoint those who have the required strengths and skills required to manage and lead not just any company, but their company.