Are you harnessing your talent pool optimally?

By Sarika Gupta Bhattacharyya

Just like many features of your tablet that you\’re yet unaware of, a huge potential of the talent pool in your organisation remains under utilised!

Those who know me well enough know that I am somewhat of a “Gadget Junkie”. I love everything that is high-tech and I am regularly on a look out for the latest electronic gadgets, with a desire to own them. Needless to say, I am a huge Apple fan. Soon after I quit my corporate job to become an entrepreneur, the first thing I did was to replace my Windows laptop with a Macbook, my Blackberry with an iPhone and to acquire an iPad.

When I bought my first iPad, it was the sleekest, fastest, most powerful tablet available. It was loaded with different kinds of software and a bunch of other features, too numerous to mention. It was quite cool! The features included were so brilliant that I barely felt the need for a keyboard again, even though I don\’t utilise cheap zithromax online them all. It’s been four years, and I have used it only for mails, Microsoft Office (yes I got that on iPad!), internet surfing and possibly a few more things. The other day when I needed to edit a video, I chose to outsource it to a vendor, even though I could have done it on my Macbook. I brag about having all these cool gadgets with really cool features, but I am yet to utilise them all, optimally and efficiently.

The way I fail to use so many features of my gadgets leads me to think about organizations that don’t leverage their diverse features! Their features are their talent pool and its skills. They have categorized people in some way – by region, gender, age and so on. An organization’s inability to embrace strengths of all its people prevents it from taking advantage of opportunities that a global competitive environment might have to offer. That is the power of inclusion of diversity.

Taking steps to create a diverse workforce is one thing. Doing away with old structures and methods so that a diverse workforce can excel is quite another. But what are those steps that we can take to leverage a diverse workforce?

• Transform traditional views with patience
• Invest in providing new skills
• Take discomfort as an opportunity rather than an obstacle
• Be open to learning from peers, juniors and other colleagues

Organisations that can weather transformation, utilise the strength of diversity to its fullest. I will be taking my own advice and will learn to put my gadgets to more uses. It will take some time, but I plan to do so by enlisting the help of a young intern in my team and taking advantage of reverse mentoring. I\’ve added the latest DSLR camera by Nikon to my collection and I plan on using all of its features too. 😉