What is talent mobility?

Talent mobility is the practice of enabling employees to move within an organization, often through job transfers, remote work, and other arrangements.

Reasons why talent mobility is essential

Modern businesses need to be agile. Growth and survival depend on grasping opportunities, such as:

• Expanding into new markets or territories
• Launching new products
• Changing the business focus to exciting new horizons

Achieving each of these objectives requires access to a skilled talent pool. However, skill shortages alongside employee recruitment and retention challenges can get in the way. So, how can you ensure you have the right resources to capitalize on opportunities?

Agile and flexible workforces are one way to respond to these problems. Efficiently moving your employees to different roles and locations can help you unlock business goals and improve employee engagement and retention.

Strategic sourcing

The rapid pace of technological change means many businesses are struggling with employee acquisition. Talent mobility provides an answer to these issues.

You can respond dynamically to change with greater visibility over your current and former workforce, including contractors. Understanding the skills, specialties, and preferences of available staff allows you to identify and mobilize suitable candidates for particular projects.

Talent mobility is also about nurturing high-potential candidates. It’s about creating talent pipelines for the future of your business, ensuring continuity.

Boost employee engagement and retention.

High employee turnover is a huge problem. Replacing staff costs money and productivity. Talent mobility can help by providing your team with pathways to progress or develop.

Not all internal movement needs to be upward to keep employees happy. Many workers are satisfied with lateral moves if they can pick up new skills or experiences that can eventually lead to promotion.

Additionally, internal moves save time to productivity (TTV). Employees already steeped in your culture and process can often outperform external appointments.

Boost talent acquisition

Businesses that provide clear pathways to career advancement are popular with job seekers. The job market is competitive, and if your business earns a reputation for nurturing talent, you can boost your employer value proposition (EVP).

Talent mobility encourages a focus on talent development, training, and feedback. While this approach will improve your internal teams, it will also make you attractive to the next generation of talent.

Talent mobility strategy best practices

Building an effective talent mobility strategy involves some critical considerations. 

Understand the different types of talent mobility

To build a talent mobility strategy, you must consider how employees can move around organizations. There are two main categories.

• Role-to-role mobility: Focuses on employees changing their job within your organization
• Project-based mobility: Moves employees around based on project requirements.

Both types of mobility are valid depending on your business needs and objectives.

Set mobility benchmarks

Shifting to a talent mobility mindset takes time. So, ensure you set objectives and benchmarks and measure your process. Understand what your business hopes to achieve through mobility and try to limit unnecessary movement.

Balance mobility with advancement

Striking a balance between employee productivity and ambition is a challenge. You want your staff to add the skills and experiences required for vertical moves. However, too often, employees want to move on just as they are thriving in a particular role. 

Talent mobility requires a flexible approach to duties and responsibilities while still providing tangible pathways to progression.

Process mining

Process mining uses event logs to analyze business processes. You can employ this technique to gain a better understanding of employee workflows. As your team moves to different projects or roles, process mining helps you eliminate potential inefficiencies.

Embrace agility through talent mobility.

Organizational agility allows you to move with the times. Talent mobility is a big part of this process. When you can move your teams to wherever they are needed, you can boost responsiveness and productivity. Double up your talent mobility with employee development opportunities, and you’ll have a winning strategy.