According to Mark Busine, managing director of DDI Southeast Asia, 62% of companies in Singapore have a process to identify their top talent. However, based on DDI's research and experience with clients, the standards of this process may vary among organisations, with some processes less robust than others.

Busine says while Singapore organisations are currently good at pinpointing high performing employees through performance reviews and other similar metrics, many are unable to identify employees with high potential. "Where [the organisations] tend to find a little bit more difficult is around identifying things such as potential," he says. "And often what they would do is default to performance as a meausre of potential."

However, only 52% out of the 62% say they have a programme to accelerate the development of high potentials. So why are companies just merely sitting on this data and not executing any talent development plans?

One reason for this is because companies may take the process talent identification to be the focal activity, says Busine. "They might be identifying their pool of key talent, but they are not necessarily looking at what they should do once they have them in place."

Another possible cause is due to the lack of understanding with how organisations can work with the identified talent to ensure a maximum amount of return on the company's investment.

Once companies have identified their key employees, Busine says DDI recommends letting key staff know that they've been selected as a high potential. He adds this would allow for staff to embrace a level of responsibility and accountability for supporting their own growth and development.

Following that, companies should understand where the gaps in strengths and weaknesses of key talent lie. This can be done through sources such as assessment centres so as to give HR practitioners a better understanding of where to focus development actions towards. "Then, what you want to do is ensure you have a good and robust development plan and action to support their growth towards future leader roles."

Busine recommends using a mix of activities - both formal and informal. While formal training would be useful in helping to close skill and knowledge gaps, Busine says for more key talent senior roles, companies should look into deploying mentors and coaches, job rotations and stretch assignments and projects.

Ultimately this would help with retention of key players, as Busine adds that development and opportunities to grow are key motivators for high potentials. "So if you're not providing those types of opportunities, they may well look for those opportunities elsewhere."