The success of matching employees with job opportunities greatly depends on the alignment of skills, competencies, and proficiencies as well as a supportive culture. In addition, factors that influence the supply and demand for mobility necessitate having an integrated people and business strategy.
Skills and Competencies and Proficiencies (oh my!)
Like dating agencies, successful mobility programs are about creating matches that have a high likelihood of success. To create this match, the employee and the opportunity, must align on language and common ground i.e., skills and competencies.
Skills, being defined as a “learned ability” (the “what”) and competencies as a collection of “knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors and experiences that are necessary or beneficial to performing a job role” (the “how”). For example, customer service roles may require active-listening, time management and data-entry skills as well as problem-solving, teamwork, and communication competencies.
The third related (and not sufficiently discussed component) is “proficiency”, or how good someone is at that skill or competency.
The success of internal transfers will be highly dependent on how similar the current and target roles are in terms of their required skills, competencies and proficiencies. The broader the skills, the more transferable, the more specific they are, the more challenging; for example, an accountant seeking an air quality engineering role.
Before embarking on mobility programs, companies should have well-defined skills, competencies and proficiencies to have a meaningful, value-driven outcomes. Furthermore, they should also ensure alignment with sourcing, performance management, succession planning and talent development strategies to provide a more seamless employee experience.
Leadership & Culture
Leadership is highly influential in fostering a the right environment for career growth and opportunities. They help set the tone that it’s ok to take measured risks, support managers with headcount, partner with HR on people strategy, and inspire the learning culture needed for development.
They can also help tremendously by leading through example. One popular career advice nugget is that you should always seek to train your replacement so you can move on to (hopefully) larger things. When it comes to succession planning, it’s hard to not want to keep talent within a leader’s department. Just as managers “talent hoard”, leaders can inadvertently contribute to this culture in succession planning sessions. To truly invest in future talent, high performing employees should actively be offered opportunities to gain experiences in other parts of the company.
HYPOTHESIS
| Successful mobility programs will have operational and cultural prerequisites. |
A drive towards job mobility also implies the need for transparency and planning to create confidence in the program. The denial of internal transfers should be clearly communicated to candidates, along with the necessary resources to help them further develop any identified gaps. In addition, approvals for transfers should also be handled in a way to minimally disrupt the employees existing team while ensuring a timely transition. Respectively, this implies a need for strong alignment between performance management and talent development strategies and open collaboration between both managers.
Economics of Mobility
While much has been focused on the demand for mobility; it must be counterbalanced by discussing the supply, i.e., the number of job opportunities available.
This begs the questions: if organizations are constantly optimizing their workforce to ensure that the right people are in the right roles, do they need job mobility? Where do people move into when there are little to no gaps in an organization? What events drive the creation of job openings or encourage demand?
All these questions seem related to economic principles so let’s make a table for our economist friends.
TABLE: Job Mobility Supply and Demand
| Supply (Job Openings) | Demand (Job Seekers) |
|---|---|
| Increased by | |
| + Retirements + Transfers + Promotions + Net New (via business strategy or initiative) + Re-organizational changes + Voluntary separations + Terminations + Contractor conversions + Market-driven (e.g., ESG, AI) | + Generational preferences + Risk of role obsolescence + Employee/role dissatisfaction + Re-org opportunities + Changes in leadership + Innovation/Start-up opportunity (fast growing area) + Change Management (awareness, desire) + Employer Value Proposition (EVP) or Employer Brand |
| Decreased by | |
| – Voluntary Attrition – Mergers & Acquisitions – Layoffs/RIFs (performance, market conditions) – Outsourcing – Role consolidation or obsolescence (industry, tech) – Temporary hiring freezes | – Stagnated openings – Market conditions (job stability) – Org barriers (culture, process, leadership) – High job satisfaction – Competitive pay & benefits – Increased work tenure |
| Central Bank (HR + Business) |
|---|
| Through business and people strategy, the “Central Bank” drives the policies, processes, change management and culture that can increase or decrease the supply and demand for job mobility. |
As described, the “Central Bank” is instrumental in accelerating or slowing down the rate of mobility. It does so through a series of actions taken by HR in support of business strategy. For example, in a more passive approach, supply and demand fluctuations are primarily driven through ad hoc events such as retirements, voluntary separations, changes in leadership, etc. Since movement is mostly reactive, in the short-term, it is more cost-effective.
HYPOTHESIS
| Programs must be intimately and intentionally connected to business and people strategy. |
When taking a more active approach, fluctuations are intentionally managed via process or strategy adjustments, for example, modifying the process of who can apply (e.g. required tenure, performance rating, consecutive rating, volunteerism, etc.) temporary hiring freezes, creating re-org opportunities, etc. An intentional evaluation and movement of employees requires an integrated people strategy with the supporting information, systems and processes in place. The strategic nature of these activities, however, imply long-term, more costly investments.
The trick to having a good supply and demand ratio is the transparent, strong and collaborative relationship between people and business leaders.
Conclusion
Through this thought exercise we raised several questions, answered some and uncovered topics for further exploration. At a minimum, I hope it will generate meaningful conversations among people leaders to determine what works best for their respective companies. In the end, I am a strong proponent that regardless of the action, it should be intentional and most importantly, tied back to strategy.
Here are some steps for your consideration:
- Survey the organization to see where job mobility lies in relation to your employer value proposition.
- Collect and analyze exit survey data and data on transfer requests.
- Identify the roles, locations or demographics where requests mostly originate (your main audience).
- Conduct a cost-benefit analysis on what it takes to create or improve a program for that audience.
- Ensure your organization is culturally ready to adopt and sustain the program.
Lastly, mobility without a path leads to nowhere. As such, it’s not about the next role, but rather, a series of steps in a journey that help employees arrive at where they want to be. Though continued dialog, you will find that it will be the quickest way to distinguish myths from uncomfortable truths.
Twistymind 