From the Great Resignation to “quiet quitting,” HR professionals and recruiters are facing challenges like never before.
With evolving employee expectations and a record-hot labor market, employers are struggling to hold onto their top talent and to bring new rising stars in the door. However, that’s not to say that building a thriving and successful workforce in today’s climate is out of the question.
Instead of investing heavily just in external hiring, employers today could benefit from taking a look inward—investing also in the talent they already have. Talent mobility is one of the hottest topics in HR today. With the price and challenges of hiring, it only makes sense to take advantage of the talent you’ve already hired. And it’s not just a strategy to decrease your hiring budget; the more opportunities current employees have to develop their skills and even build new ones, the longer they may stick around.
A recent LinkedIn survey, for instance, found that workers who were given the opportunity to move laterally in a company within three years of joining had a 62% chance of staying with the organization for an additional five years; that statistic jumped to 70% when employees were promoted to a higher level. But, a successful talent mobility strategy isn’t just about letting employees job hop. HR, business leaders and managers need to work together to ensure they’re matching the talent they have with the skills they need.
To do that, employers can rely on emerging technologies, including those that power skills assessments—so you can see the strengths of everyone in your workforce and use that as a guide to funnel talent into the roles where they’re needed. Being transparent with the entire workforce about your approach to talent mobility is also key. Workers should know when they join the organization what opportunities might await them and what they need to do to meet those goals. Employers should also recognize that the experiences and skill sets of their current workforce may not always be what they need to succeed in the future—so, instead of simply hiring new workers with those skills, true talent mobility would demand that they invest in upskilling and reskilling their current employees. From technical skills to soft skills, employees should feel empowered to look to their employer to help them develop the areas they need to in order to move around—and up—within the company.
Talent mobility requires forward-thinking, proactive strategizing—which can be taxing for organizations struggling to stay above water given all the current challenges facing the world of business. However, it’s an effort that will yield a payoff in terms of enhanced employee engagement and loyalty—and, ultimately, retention—along with more efficient and affordable operations, as the right people matched to the right work reduce hiring costs and allow for streamlined processes. A win-win for employees and employers—which is what is exactly needed in today’s environment.
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