The Best Food & Beverage Talent May Already be Working for You! Tips for identifying “hidden superstars” in your organization

November 10, 2014 in HR Best Practices

 

 

Where will you find your organization’s next great executive or professional? You may already have hidden superstars!

With talent markets tightening up, many food & beverage employers are looking internally to fill available positions. And with good reason.

The truth is, the best food & beverage talent may already be on your team. The trick is identifying which individuals are truly “high potential” – possessing the latent abilities to thrive in a more challenging role.

How can you find these “hidden superstars” within your organization? Today, Kinsa provides advice to help you identify team members with the desire and ability to perform at the next level:

Understand the difference between performance and potential. High performers are easy to spot. They consistently exceed expectations, have a track record of success and are the “go-to” choices for tough projects. High potentials, however, can be much more difficult to identify for several reasons:

  • They’re highly skilled, but their abilities have not been “put to the test” because they may be assigned to the wrong roles.
  • They are altruistic and have high emotional intelligence, but may be too humble (or not know how) to adequately self-promote.
  • Your current performance appraisal system may not adequately gauge potential.

Look for these core competencies. Potential is as much about character attributes and “soft skills” as it is about actual performance. When identifying high potential, consider the following list of key indicators:

  • Character. Values align with the organization; passionate about the industry; role model for company culture.
  • Personality. Strong interpersonal and social skills; resilient; persistent; emotionally stable.
  • Learning. Flexible; accepting of feedback; rapid learner.
  • Motivation. Aspires to higher level of responsibility; tolerance for risk-taking; career- and results-oriented.
  • Leadership. Ability to manage, inspire, lead and develop people; challenges the status quo.
  • Performance. Results-oriented; exceeds expectations; develops creative solutions.
  • Knowledge. Technical/functional skills and knowledge.

Develop objective, reliable methods to assess not just performance, but potential. Traditional performance appraisals focus more on results than on identifying potential. Adapt your processes to include clear criteria for assessing potential. Include the behaviors, soft skills, achievements and performance indicators that equate to high potential for each key role.

Need to grow your team?

Trust Kinsa Group with your next executive food & beverage search. Our recruiting professionals are experts at identifying high potential employees who will perform well in your organization.  Whether you’re looking for a C-level executive, a quality assurance professional or a food technologist, we offer a variety of search and assessment services to deliver the best and brightest for you.

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