Will Gaines is the Vice President of Human Resources at Super Store Industries.
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With many employees in the United States contemplating leaving their jobs in 2023—61%, according to data from LinkedIn—it’s understandable that business leaders might be reluctant to invest in talent mobility efforts that train and upskill their employees for new roles at their companies. They fear that training employees might not yield a return to their companies if those employees ultimately end up resigning.
But I urge business leaders to consider the following adage: A CFO asks a CEO what would happen if they “invest in developing” their employees, and those employees end up moving on. The CEO responds, “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?” This perfectly drives home the point: Not investing in talent mobility is a huge risk. Plus, supported employees are more likely to be engaged and, in turn, stay at their organizations. In a 2018 study by corporate microlearning company Axonify, 92% of respondents noted that “the right kind of formal workplace training impacts their job engagement positively.” What’s more, according to a 2018 LinkedIn study, “94% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development.”
The numbers speak for themselves. Instead of fearing talent mobility, company leaders should embrace it by connecting the dots between employees’ curiosity and interests.
Talent Mobility Fuels Recruitment And Employee Engagement And Retention
At the core, talent mobility strengthens the employee experience, helping companies with employee recruitment, engagement and retention efforts.
A company that invests in helping its people grow is attractive to candidates looking for upward mobility. As for employee engagement, when employees receive regular training, they can connect with their work on a deeper level, and they’ll also be more productive; in a SurveyMonkey survey, 59% of respondents indicated that job training “improves their overall job performance.” And when employees can relate to their work better, they’ll feel good about showing up each day and will be more likely to stay. A 2023 LinkedIn report found that companies “have a nearly 7% higher retention rate at the 3-year mark with employees who have learned skills on the job.”
Why Company Leaders Should Focus On Both Lateral And Vertical Talent Mobility
When building talent mobility programs, company leaders should focus on both lateral and vertical talent mobility. Lateral mobility refers to employees picking up new skills, moving to adjacent roles or even switching departments entirely, whereas vertical mobility refers to employees moving to higher roles.
In my experience, purposeful lateral growth can help increase opportunities for vertical career growth. Through lateral growth, a company leader and an employee can collaborate to identify an employee’s passions and career aspirations and then co-create an action plan. Through that action plan, the leader can meet the employee where they are and put a roadmap in place that will help the employee acquire the skills and knowledge they’ll need to reach their goals. As the employee’s career grows laterally, the employee becomes more prepared for a promotion.
The Basics Of Implementing A Talent Mobility Program
Building a talent mobility program takes time and requires careful planning. But there are some basics that companies should start with.
Above all, a talent mobility program must be supported throughout a company and not confined to the HR department. Talent mobility programs that have buy-in from company leaders and managers are more likely to succeed. Structure is also crucial. These programs need frameworks with clear milestones and KPIs. Otherwise, stakeholders won’t know how the program is doing and where it’s heading.
Support and structure aside, leaders should prioritize cultivating a culture of learning. By this, I don’t mean they should hold one or two trainings a quarter that employees might perceive as transactional—and as leadership trying to check off a box. Instead, there should be regular learning opportunities that are designed to be transformational for employees, such as on-the-job training and stipends for employees to attend industry conferences. In such an environment, employees will be more likely to gain and share knowledge with their colleagues. Ultimately, learning has to be something everyone at the company lives and breathes.
Company leaders should also help employees track their learning and skills acquisition goals. Assessing each employee’s existing skills, sitting down with them to learn which skills they’d like to learn and then creating a skills inventory for the entire company is a good place to begin. As the Society for Human Resource Management explains, a skills inventory is “a compilation of the skills, education and experiences of current employees. Organizations use these inventories to assess whether current staff can meet company goals.” With this knowledge, company leaders can determine which skills their organizations need the most development in, identify employees interested in developing those skills and then implement the proper training initiatives.
Additionally, I recommend that company leaders build an internal talent marketplace (ITM) for their organizations. As a group of experts noted in the Harvard Business Review, ITMs help “delegate job assignments and match employees with supervisors.”
Communication Is Key
As company leaders build talent mobility programs, they need to keep communication top of mind.
For one, they should gather input from their team members, learning what people want from training, what they like and dislike about current initiatives, ideas for future training opportunities, etc. Just because a company gets its talent mobility program right today doesn’t mean it will get it right tomorrow. A consistent, healthy dialogue about talent mobility programs will help company leaders understand what’s going well and what isn’t so they can adjust things accordingly, maximizing the chances of employees getting the most out of these initiatives.
As employees enhance their skills and reach their career goals with talent mobility programs, company leaders should celebrate those wins. People love hearing about the successful experiences of others. When employees learn about how their colleagues have leveraged opportunities to enhance their careers, they’ll be more likely to do the same—ultimately adding to their team’s bank of skills and knowledge.
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