The CHRO has always had a hand in creating a strong company culture and ensuring a broad talent pool to source from, but with staffing shortages and economic uncertainty, there must be a new approach to hiring and retention. Internal mobility is characterized as the transition of employees within the organization to positions both vertical or lateral with the opportunity to advance, broaden skills, and find their role of best fit.
Internal mobility is something that can often be overlooked or not prioritized, and even companies with strong internal mobility efforts often do not communicate them well, leading to employees looking outside of their organization rather than within. In fact, the 2022 Job Seeker Nation Report found that 54% of employees searching for new jobs have not looked internally at their current organization for a new position.
HR leaders should be considering ways to offer internal career growth opportunities, and technology can be a great tool to identify and match employee skills with potential openings. Mobility in the workplace motivates employees to remain engaged and productive by equipping them with the knowledge that they can grow and develop as a professional with the support of their organization.
Ways CHROs can Prioritize Mobility in the Workplace
There are many areas in which the CHRO can improve processes to enable hiring from within, and this is crucial to ensuring a strong company culture and satisfied employees. Offering growth opportunities provides encouragement for those who don’t want to get stuck in repetitive responsibilities or are feeling stagnant in their role.
- Refocusing Hiring Strategies: Recruiting external talent is expensive, time-consuming, and disruptive. A Gallup study found that the cost of replacing one employee starts at one-half times the employee's salary and can cost up to twice as much. The CHRO has a unique opportunity to boost efficiency, improve engagement, and achieve broad organizational goals by re-strategizing the hiring process. This can be done by implementing tools and technology that source talent from within, match open roles with existing skill sets, and utilize analytics to identify growth opportunities. Organizations that want to achieve synergy and build a positive company culture must establish a framework that allows employees to pursue their interests from within.
- Creating an Internal Talent Marketplace: Modern HR software can include a solution that acts as an internal talent marketplace, helping match employees to new role opportunities. While such platforms can assist with mobility in the workplace, their success hinges on how analytics are used to gather data and skills information, and subsequently how these openings are communicated to employees. Career movement is inevitable, but it does not have to be a negative experience. By utilizing a talent marketplace to have these conversations, employees aren’t just ‘allowed’ to seek new opportunities, but rather they are encouraged and supported.
- Leveraging Machine Learning: Another helpful tool for the CHRO role is machine learning and automation. Machine learning can improve data quality, identify employees’ desired roles and growth trajectories, maintain a continuously changing list of skills, and analyze how these data points intersect with organizational goals. In addition, machine learning makes internal mobility an unbiased experience instead of choosing people based on attributes that do not equate to needed skills in a specific role. This technology breaks employees out of biased silos and provides new development opportunities. Digital transformation and the tools provided as a result help sustain individual career trajectories and promote a positive, supportive workplace culture that fosters autonomy.
- Strengthen DEI Efforts: Another way that HR leaders can ensure a culturally strong and internally mobile workplace is by prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Using technology to gather insights on diversity and culture metrics ensures that everyone is given a fair chance at growth. The CHRO must find the necessary mechanisms and systems to eliminate bias, remove barriers to opportunity, address disadvantages, and prioritize equity when hiring from within. The positive impact of prioritizing DEI efforts is that it results in employees feeling more valued, more inspired to work hard, and less limited in their careers.
Improve Employee Satisfaction with Internal Mobility
A McKinsey report found that the top three reasons why employees left their organizations were not feeling valued by their organization, not feeling valued by their manager, and experiencing a lack of belonging at work. These issues lead to lower productivity, negative workplace culture, and poor retention rates. Providing opportunities and encouraging employees to grow and develop their skill sets is a great way to combat these issues.
Organizations can’t depend on costly external talent recruiting to obtain critical skills for their goals. The CHRO role must evolve in its strategies to effectively source the talent that exists in their own teams and departments. When organizations make a conscious effort to invest in systems such as an internal career program and internal hiring platform, employees feel valued beyond their daily responsibilities and encouraged to further develop their professional skills.
To learn more about how Collaborative Solutions can help your HR leaders transform processes, check out our Workday HR Transformation page.