Benefits of Talent Mobility

When we get locked into a way of doing things, we can miss out on some big opportunities. When it comes to employees, a dynamic approach can help leverage their skills and increase workplace efficiency. Companies with internal mobility programs are ready to move people to the positions or projects where they are needed.

There are many benefits of talent mobility when best practices are followed. Unfortunately, some companies believe in the importance of mobility in organization but don’t realize that it goes far beyond internal job matching. To reap the true benefits of internal mobility for employees, companies can’t just come up with an internal job board or random position recommendation algorithm—they have to completely reimagine the journey.

The purpose of internal mobility isn’t to steamroll the employee and ignore their personal aspirations. The goal is to create an agile workforce that is future-proof for change.

When done correctly, the importance of mobility in organization talent cannot be understated. The importance of internal mobility is going to support managers and employees just as much as it boosts the company’s bottom line. This modern approach to talent management is changing how businesses handle their teams and reduce unnecessary turnover.

When the organization chooses to shift in a new direction or add on a new element to its offering, talent mobility allows them to do so seamlessly. With a lot of talented and trained individuals on board, hiring becomes a proactive process and not a reactive one. Companies are free to hire the people that fit their professional expectations and culture, not scramble to find a specific kind of talent to fill a newly opened role.

In the modern world, talent mobility is crucial for a growing and successful company. This post will explore how to leverage talent mobility strategy.

To future-proof your workplace, you will need to incorporate talent mobility. Meaning, you need to re-think your approach to training, career paths and development programs.

So, what is talent mobility? To understand the talent mobility definition, it is important to understand the various challenges and moving parts within the company.

The PwC Talent Mobility 2020 report asked CEOs what changes would be made in their people strategies after the pandemic. The top three areas for planned change included:

• Managing people and redefining roles in the organization
• Training and development programs
• Programs to support staff morale and engagement

According to PwC, 74% of employees are ready to learn a new skill to be more employable in the future. And, 60% of the workforce is concerned about job stability in the future with growing tech and AI.

Talent mobility is moving people to where they are most needed and best used.

But, modern mobility strategies are becoming more sophisticated to handle complex issues. Not only are organizations facing increasing demands from their buyers, but employees are holding very different needs and expectations. With a workforce made up of three distinct generations, managing expectations can be difficult without a modern solution.

Talent mobility strategies can help companies keep pace with the changes of today’s industries and markets. This process helps leaders radically rethink policies and processes to leverage and build their internal talent pools.

While traditional mobility included transfers and international assignments, modern companies are filling their gaps with virtual and remote workers. Companies today are focused on optimization and can do this with a human-centered digital ecosystem in place to activate the mobility value chain.

When it comes to talent mobility best practices, understanding the types of internal mobility will be an important step. There are generally two approaches to mobility: role-to-role mobility and project-based mobility.

Utilize Two Types of Talent Mobility

A strong internal mobility program should include both aspects of mobility. Role-to-role mobility allows employees to change their jobs within the organization, filling roles as needed. Project-based mobility supports employees working on different projects and not being stuck with a certain workflow or set team. Internal mobility best practices will stay focused on the people forming your teams and not overlook their personal feelings towards mobility.

Think Long-Term for Employee Growth

Upward mobility is another aspect that can complicate the role-to-role mobility to some degree. Employees should have clear paths forward to improve their skills and professional abilities, but their ability to move throughout the company shouldn’t be sacrificed. As employees expand their abilities and take on higher titles, they shouldn’t “graduate” from tasks where they are still needed. Managing this balance can be tricky.

Look for Redundancies and Unnecessary Overlap

Process mining can be a useful tool to really help optimize talent mobility. Process mining will look at what employees are doing and how workflows really move. Rather than assume the touchpoints and processes always make sense, process mining will look at all timestamps and movements to see if there are bottlenecks or snags that can be addressed to optimize the process. This can help pinpoint unnecessary mobility, where employees are moving to places they aren’t truly needed and wasting valuable time with extra touchpoints in the process.

Increase Project Communication

When employees are moving to different projects and roles, a solid project management software (PMs) should be leveraged to keep everyone on track. Increased clarity is needed to avoid miscommunications about assigned tasks. The PMs will track project timelines and employee mobility, which can show if you are hitting your

Set Internal Mobility Benchmarks

Define how internal mobility can help your company and create a list of goals. Make sure one internal mobility benchmark includes avoiding unnecessary movements. Not all movement is good movement.

Consider Team Morale

Part of a strong internal talent mobility strategy will include recommending cross-functional projects, rotations and secondments. It’s important to still maintain intrinsic values of completion and success, so talent movement may sometimes need to be reined in. If the mobility pace gets too fast, employees may start to feel as if they never get to see any significant project through to its end.

A talent mobility framework is needed to get your new strategy in place. Your internal mobility framework will help define goals and policies to support the mobility strategy. This creates a formal process out of your new internal mobility process and helps clarify your internal talent mobility policy.

After a global pandemic, we’ve seen firsthand just how crucial it is to incorporate both in-person and remote employees into the talent mobility strategy. Even though the talent mobility definition would naturally include remote employees, they can sometimes be left outside of the normal loop as the “other.” In a strong strategy, employees at every level, location, department, hiring timeline and position will be part of the mobile approach.

With new processes, a framework offers clarity. A solid framework can save a lot of time and confusion by clarifying how things should look moving forward. Established the framework will create a repeatable, objective and scalable practice for your business and support the success of this initiative.

Under the umbrella of talent mobility, HR departments are working to safeguard their talent pipelines. Now, more than ever, companies cannot afford to pay for unnecessary turnover and losing human potential to their competitors because of poor internal practices. Talent mobility holds an important role in building an effective team and optimizing company processes.