Career mobility is often described a way to move ‘up’ into positions with better salaries, benefits, and perks. If the company does not have an ‘up’, employees may choose the ‘out.’ 

With opportunity or internal mobility, employees can focus on additional opportunities in their career. With this, they need not look up – they look around and throughout. 

Importance of Career Mobility 

There is a misconception that career mobility exclusively favors employees. Notably, replacing a departing employee with a new hire costs a business approximately 20% of the former employee’s annual salary. 

Prioritizing effective and efficient retention fosters a positive work environment and minimizes costs. 

When employees could transition to roles with improved compensation within the same company, it becomes a compelling factor for them to stay, mitigating the need to entertain external job offers. 

Identify Critical Skills to Facilitate Mobility with Talent Intelligence 

A significant challenge in the talent management landscape is the evolution of skills and roles. What was in high demand a few years ago may not hold the same significance today, given the average half-life of a technical skill is approximately 2.5 years. 

This presents talent management with a considerable hurdle in ensuring employee satisfaction with their career growth and keeping them abreast of the latest skill trends. 

Effectively managing talent based on skills, fostering skill development, and anticipating emerging skills confers a strategic advantage to your talent management team in the realm of reskilling/upskilling. 

Talent intelligence empowers employees to take control of their professional journey. 

When talent management and L&D leaders, and employees collaborate and share common datasets on skills, a synergy emerges, enabling the creation of development plans and career growth opportunities that were previously unattainable. 

Moreover, talent intelligence reveals adjacent skills to the in-demand ones you seek. Identifying employees possessing these adjacent skills increases the likelihood of them being capable of acquiring the new skills you require. 

Create an Effective Career Mobility Program 

A well-crafted approach can transform your talent management activity as your clandestine asset.

1. Understand your employee experience

Retaining talent is challenging without understanding their dissatisfaction for resigning. Establishing a proactive mechanism to listen to your employees while they are still part of your organization enables talent management to address attrition causes. 

Talent management can glean insights with open-ended questions, enabling employees to express. Employing advanced qualitative methods, such as NLP, aids in constructing detailed descriptions of employee experiences. 

2. Create a career mobility policy and establish a pilot:

Talent management teams must determine the policies, procedures, and parameters govern internal mobility. They must: 

• Consult the checklist to guarantee that those who opt in are effectively recruited, placed, and duly rewarded. 
• Choose an initial group of internal candidates to pilot the newly developed system. 
• Develop an action plan outlining how these individuals will transition from their current roles. 
• Seek their input on what they envision as their ideal career path. 
• Anticipate numerous questions and be prepared to adjust on the fly. 

3. Addresses unmet needs of employees:

From fertility treatments to scholarships, talent management teams are crafting Employee Value Propositions (EVPs) enriched with enticing benefits. However, HR talent management leaders must know what works for employees locally than following trends. 

The more talent management teams grasp the extent of individuals’ stress and unmet needs, the more effectively they can assess programs, rewards, or experiences that would better convey the existing initiatives aimed at alleviating those stress factors. 

4. Reskill/upskill as a critical investment:

The focal point of the evolving employment landscape revolves around personal development and employee training. Retaining talent hinges on constructing an engaging career path within your organization. 

Even prior to the pandemic, 78% of employees expressed their readiness to acquire new skills. 

Guaranteeing the sustainability of individuals through enhanced employability has become an integral aspect of the employment agreement. 

Organizations can enable employees to enhance their skill sets by integrating strategic training opportunities into a robust career framework—one that delineates clear and transparent career paths for employees to navigate. 

5. Evaluate, revise, and repeat:

Assess your program and identify its successes, areas requiring adjustment, and considerations for scalability. Actively seek feedback from employees, supervisors, and HR leaders to refine the process. 

While an internal career mobility program may not retain every valued employee or address all staffing needs, the talent management impact is significant. Filling a few positions through this approach signifies substantial progress in fortifying the company’s culture and prosperity. 

For talent management teams, leveraging AI-powered talent intelligence provides comprehensive insight into existing and essential skills within your workforce. 

This empowers you to strategically align people’s capabilities with the tasks required to maintain a competitive edge and stay ahead in the industry. 

Draup for Talent, a talent intelligence platform enables talent management leaders perform these functions: 

• Talent gap analysis: It pinpoints the existing skills and experience gaps within your workforce so your talent management leaders can channel your hiring efforts towards addressing these gaps effectively. 
• Talent pool development: Construct a talent pool comprising qualified candidates aligned with your company culture and values utilizing Draup’s expertise. 
• Recruitment automation: Streamline your recruitment process with Draup’s automation capabilities, handling tasks like candidate sourcing and resume screening efficiently. 
• Reskilling and upskilling: Identify employees in need of reskilling or upskilling through Draup’s insights and provide tailored training to keep them ahead of industry trends.