Internal mobility serves to develop your employees’ employability. This is a new challenge for HR and Talent Management who have to meet the developing needs of their company, as well as their employees. Indeed, some professions will evolve while others disappear. Meanwhile, it is entirely necessary to work on employee satisfaction regarding their current job, as well as their future job potential. Internal mobility offers different ways to achieve this. So, what do we do on a daily basis to bring it to life and encourage employees to participate? How can you ensure that your internal mobility path is agile and adaptable?
What are indicators of successful internal mobility?
Today there are specific indicators that can be analysed, but the most important thing is to know if an employee is successful in their new position or role. In some structures, mobility follows logical, traditional steps. In others, mobility is less linear and requires new skills, even training for entirely new activity sectors. So, there are two levers to work on:
- The notion of skills: An employee needs to be able to acquire new skills, or to apply their current set elsewhere. This also includes soft skills in addition to technical skills.
- The notion of motivation: The definition of motivation for an employee can be very broad. For recruiters and managers, the notion of motivation should translate into the desire for novelty, the desire and ability to acquire new skills, and above all the desire to challenge oneself and succeed.
Those involved in internal mobility
During a mobility process, a relationship is created between three active parties: the employee, the manager and the recruiter/talent management/etc.
- The employee: At the center as the primary actor is the employee themself. They are leading their mobility, because they should also be deciding when and how they want to evolve, develop or use their skills to change position.
- The manager: They encounter the employee on a daily basis. We could even consider them as the closest point of access for HR. Indeed, some of the first questions recruiters ask should be to the manager. It is the manager who will draw up an initial profile of the employee and thus define whether there is a possible mobility move.
- HR: The person in charge of human resources/recruitment/talent management/etc. will accompany the employee and manager along the mobility journey. This individuals acts as the facilitator, since they will be present throughout the mobility process and even well after. Of course, it is also HR’s responsibility and role to continue following the employee after the mobility has taken place.
How to interest employees in mobility?
Promoting internal mobility programs requires daily effort. Employees on the job work to acquire new skills, develop them and make discoveries thanks to professional encounters which can offer then new perspectives. The role of HR is to remind the employee that they are the primary actor in their own mobility, but that, of course, they will be supported throughout the process.
Making mobility flexible
HR often tend to offer mobility in what we will call the “local sphere”, without really factoring in the employee’s own desires for development. HR’s flexibility will come in the form of looking deeper into the employee’s mobility potential with a more open-ended method. In particular, using A.I. and data makes it possible to map out all open positions and compare them to the employee’s profile. This can inspire the individual in their mobility, as they are presented with new career possibilities involving upskilling, reskilling, training support and immersive theoretical and practical experiences.
Focus on training to boost mobility
As HR, you should encourage training as much as possible. And you have to be able to set up processes that make it possible to know what type of training to use for each type of mobility. You have to be able to tell an employee that they have such-and-such skills and that certain soft and hard skills must be developed for this mobility, that make it possible to know what type of training to use for each type of mobility. You have to be able to tell an employee that they have such-and-such skills and that certain soft and hard skills must be developed for this mobility, then direct them to specific training.
Create more points of contact to promote mobility
Companies should communicate in an original and authentic manner to reach as many employees as possible. For this, a company can create different points of contact:
- Career forums: in the form of webinars, employees can discuss with a person from another department on their strategy and current challenges in their service, in the form of business testimonials.
- Skills tests: Artificial Intelligence allows HR to collect data on employees and therefore plan training to facilitate mobility. It is short format and well received on the part of employees.
- Corporate events: They allow you to explore departments or services that an employee has not yet had the opportunity to discover. Bringing all your employees together creates a community where they can discuss cross-functional topics that will allow them to have new prospects for development..
- Applications: Developing a mobile or internal application allows employees to maintain constant access to internal offers via push notifications and to apply directly.
- On the HR side, A.I. allows us to make 360° judgements where we bring together annual interviewa, workforce reviews and professional interviews so that we can determine which specific skills are sought after for certain types of positions.
To ensure that you properly introduce a career path promotion, it is essential to start by focusing on the employee. They need to understand that they must be proactive and be the primary actor in their mobility.. They need to know how to adapt and to be curious to to seek out new information and techniques on their own. On the management side, it is necessary to focus more on soft skills, because technical skills are no longer enough and are even likely to disappear in many areas in the near future. HR will have to show flexibility, adaptation and not hesitate to review their own processes to support the evolution of the company.
