In today’s tough talent marketplace, improving talent mobility is more important than ever. Talented employees are looking for more frequent career moves that align with their strengths and aspirations. Talent mobility enables employees to move more easily in the organization, creating a dynamic and highly skilled internal talent marketplace. So, what are some of the ways you can improve talent mobility?
Identify the unique strengths and career motivations of your people
It is vital to understand and value the unique and diverse strengths and talents of your people, which may not be obvious. Therefore, we recommend a profiler like TalentPredix that helps people understand their talents and strengths and how to get the best from these by aligning them with opportunities that are most likely to motivate and advance them. As a next generation strengths assessment, it also provides actionable insights about individual’s career motivations and values, enabling them to focus on roles and career pathways that will suit them most.
Provide and communicate clear, flexible career pathways
It is important to design fluid career pathways to facilitate movement to different parts of the organization. However, a flexible structure without good communication will do little to unlock mobility. It is vital to provide up-to-date and engaging communication about different career pathways to all employees. For example, employee video stories of non-traditional moves can be captured and shared to highlight the range of possibilities open to employees, including cross-department, lateral and country moves (if the company operates across multiple geographies).
Any openings should be posted internally to encourage internal moves within the organization before opening the vacancy to external candidates. This can be done in various ways, including on the company’s Intranet, internal job boards, collaboration platforms and/or regular email notifications. The posting process should be guided by HR policy and guidelines that specify the specific procedure to be followed to promote fairness, transparency, and objectivity.
Promote cross-functional/business unit projects
In our experience, too few businesses are harnessing the numerous benefits of encouraging cross-functional/business unit projects and initiatives. Advantages of such projects include improved cross-department understanding, better collaboration and problem solving and greater levels of creativity and innovation. Employees assigned to cross-functional projects will build a greater understanding of the business and learn about opportunities they may wish to transfer to in the near term or at some point in future.
Offer regular development
Inclusive and regular skills development is crucial to ensure employees can expand their skills and take on new challenges and roles in the company. As well as technical skills training, professional skills development in crucial areas such as resilience, navigating change, communication and influence, digital literacy, and problem-solving should be offered to improve these skills throughout the business. Insofar as possible, it is always better to open such training to everyone in the business so that employees can come together, meet colleagues from other areas of the business and learn from them.
Provide mentoring and coaching
Mentoring programs provide opportunities for less experienced employees to be guided and supported by people who are more experienced, ideally those outside their immediate team and/or business area. This helps employees to think more expansively about opportunities and ensures they are better prepared for future roles. Similarly, managers should be trained up as competent and confident career coaches so they can offer regular check-ins and high effective career conversations that enable meaningful career planning, action, and adaptation.
Beyond mentoring and coaching, promoting cross-team networking and companywide social activities are also important to encourage new collaborations and insights into different areas of the business.
By implementing these talent mobility strategies, organizations can create a positive and dynamic internal talent marketplace where employees feel encouraged and supported to navigate a flexible career path that fits their strengths, aspirations, and motivations, rather than a rigid one prescribed by the organization.
If you would like support to unlock the full potential of your internal talent and promote talent mobility and thriving careers, contact us at info@talentpredix.com
The attraction and retention of top senior talent have never been more important than in our current culture. Speaking at a Harvard Business Review Event, Michael D Watkins, said “Today we are in a world of transition – there is so much change going on… well-structured and delivered transition support halves the time required for leaders to become fully effective in their new roles.” This transient zeitgeist has only been reinforced by the Covid-19 global pandemic which gave many the opportunity to pause and re-assess the trajectory of their lives and careers, leading to ‘The Great Resignation’ peaking in the summer of 2021. With many people quitting their job – statistics from 2022 show that of a global sample surveyed, 40% of workers were considering leaving their jobs…[Download full version to read more]
Improve the effectiveness of your team leadership with this high-impact 12-week challenge. The challenge is designed specifically for team leaders and managers to deliver better results, motivation and teamwork.
Is it important to you to attract, retain and develop the talent in your organization? Are you spending this time and energy efficiently? This checklist will help you find out where the gaps may be for your organization in terms of talent management.
How does the checklist work?
Answer yes or no to all 24 questions divided over 2 different sections. Once you’ve checked all the boxes you can check your score by counting all “yeses” per category.
If you have a few too many “noes” you might want to pay some extra attention to our recommendations.
Ask yourself these questions to assess the effectiveness of your transition to a new leader.
1. Do I understand the context and culture of my new team and organization from the perspective of key stakeholders?
2. Do I have a clear plan for the first 100 days identifying my priorities and what I intend to do, communicate, and learn?
3. Am I clear on intended outcomes and how I will measure my success?
4. How will I manage… [Download full version to read more]
Introduction
The technological revolution and speed of innovation is transforming the workplace at a rapid rate. Within this disruptive landscape, organizations are managing myriad challenges from global supply issues, rising operational costs and inflation to a talent shortage.
1. Facing a talent and skills shortage and an economic crisis
Post-pandemic, there have been record numbers of job vacancies. This has increased competition in the job market for employers, as skilled and experienced workers can be highly selective about their next move. Offering higher pay and benefits is one tactic to secure top talent, however, it is financially unsustainable and could make existing employees feel underpaid. Compensation has a role in talent strategy, but organizations need to use different levers, other than pay to attract and retain talent. One of the most effective incentives is work that offers development and challenge as it increases workers’ value and gives them an opportunity to meaningfully improve their lives at work and beyond.
This approach can also… [Download full version to read more]
Your role in helping people achieve their full potential
A key part of your role as manager is to coach and guide your team to help them understand, clarify, and progress their career goals and achieve their full potential. Coaching is a collaborative and supportive relationship involving mutual trust, reflection and exploration. Through a process of discovery, goal setting, and focused action, it can facilitate extraordinary outcomes.
Specific ways you can support team members include:
Key Coaching Skills
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1. How can career planning help me?
Career planning maps out how you’re going to get from where you are now to where you’d ideally like to be. Having a clear vision and goal in mind will help you to identify alternative pathways and actions you need to take to get there. Career planning also enables you to take stock of your strengths and how you can best leverage these, as well as any critical improvement areas you need to be aware of so you can tackle these areas so they don’t trip you up.
2. What support and resources are available to help me plan and progress my career?
You are the ultimate owner of your career and the choices you make. However, there are numerous resources and sources of support you should call on. In addition to your manager and the HR team, you should also put aside time to put together a “Personal Development Board” or group of diverse people within and outside your organization who can assist you with your careers in different ways including providing feedback, guidance and advice, mentoring, encouragement, etc. You can also search for career resources on the Internet and professional networking platforms like LinkedIn that will provide additional tips and guidance.
3. How can I find out more about what it’s like to work in a particular job and/or functional area?
The first step is to find out who is currently doing, or has recently done, the jobs you’re keen to do in future. You can then connect with them to invite them to a virtual or in-person meeting to find out more about their experiences. It is important you prepare some questions to find out as much as possible about the role. Examples include:
4. How can I make the best career choices that take account of my desired lifestyle and personal situation?
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