Moving Managers from Talent Hoarders to Talent Magnets

Earlier this month, we posted the Harvard Business Review’s “Let Your Top Performers Move Around the Company” to our social. As the headline states, we believe internal mobility is critical to an organization’s success. Modern careers must be thought of like jungle gyms, where companies provide multiple paths that are agile and can adapt based on the needs of the employer and employee. This will allow people more meaningful career paths and allow employers higher retention rates, lower turnover costs and engaged employees. Climbing the corporate ladder no longer has to be the only option for growth.

“Talent mobility is not merely moving people from one department to another. Top organizations view the practice as the ability to identify, develop, and deploy talent to meet the needs of the business.” -HBR

A New Way

I would be remiss not to acknowledge that the way we approach internal mobility and talent development needs to change in order for this to be successful. We suggest:

• Well thought out job descriptions

• Utilize technology for job matching and skills matching

• Give employees an option or a forum to express interest in other departments or roles

• Identify skill gaps within your organization

• Train management on the benefits of letting your best people move into different departments or roles

• Turn managers from talent hoarders to talent magnets by incentivizing and rewarding managers as they contribute to talent mobility

“Multiple studies on talent mobility show that actively moving employees into different roles is one of the most underutilized, yet most effective, development and cultural enhancement techniques in companies today. In fact, research conducted by our colleagues at i4cp revealed that high-performance organizations (as measured by revenue growth, profitability, market share, and customer satisfaction) are twice as likely to emphasize talent mobility versus low-performance companies.” -HBR

The Solution to the Problem

Job Share Connect utilizes the job share model to make this happen. By sharing experiences, skills and time with another person, employees can get more out of their career. As employers empower, train and provide flexibility across their organizations, untapped potential is unlocked within individuals and the both employees and employers see many benefits.

Benefits of internal mobility:

• Improved learning retention

• Increase in cross-functional collaboration

• Access to new opportunities

• Increase in innovation

• Complementary skillsets utilized in a job share allow for two people to become one “unicorn employee”

• More loyal employees

• Reduced training costs

• Reduced turnover costs

Whether your company is full of high potential employees looking for leadership opportunities, up-skillers looking for new challenges, high performers looking for growth opportunities, career changers looking for learning opportunities, pre-retirees looking for work-life integration, or all of the above, job sharing provides an innovative and effective solution.