From labor shortages to hiring freezes, understanding the external labor market versus the internal talent marketplace within an organization is paramount to determining whether or not to invest internally or externally to fill open roles or new positions. When organizations find themselves needing to fill an open position, they often default to primarily sourcing talent from outside of their existing employee population.
However, dependent upon the current economic conditions, many organizations may have to resort to implementing hiring freezes or may need help to recruit the critical talent necessary to drive their business forward. Alternatively, in times of growth, businesses may find themselves needing more talent than the external market has available, leaving them unable to deliver upon their complete talent strategy.
In times such as these, those organizations that utilize well-established internal mobility strategies may find themselves better able to navigate this difficult talent market by successfully developing and sourcing critical talent from within their existing employee population. Leveraging Horsefly Analytics’s Global Labor Market Intelligence platform provides the global labor market insights necessary to determine whether or not leveraging an internal mobility strategy is the best talent planning decision for your business.
Defining Internal Mobility
Internal Mobility is a term used to describe the upward, downward, and lateral movement of an organization’s existing employees to new job opportunities within the organization. Examples of internal mobility may include: promotions, demotions, and lateral moves (e.g., to a role with a similar job title, compensation, and role responsibilities), or other relevant movement types as defined by the organization.
How Horsefly Can Help
Companies looking to develop strong internal mobility strategies to move their business forward can leverage the insights found within Horsefly Analytics’s Global Labor Market Intelligence platform to support their efforts. Armed with the data to identify those roles where internal mobility practices may be more effective and to design effective internal career pathways, Horsefly’s talent intelligence insights provide its users with an advantage over the competition.
Relevance to the Organization
A well-developed internal mobility strategy can support the business in a plethora of important ways. First, internal mobility supports the organization’s commitment to employee career development and advancement and helps to justify investment in formal Learning and Development processes. If an organization provides its employees with ample opportunity to move within the organization, employees are more likely to be engaged and motivated, leading to increased productivity and morale while reducing overall attrition.
Furthermore, when formal internal mobility practices are established, employee learning programs can be specifically targeted to provide employees with what they specifically need to make their next move, and also provide learning practitioners with a rich set of outcome data with which to assess potential return on investment.
Internal mobility is also frequently less expensive and more effective than hiring via external methods. Recruiting talent from the external market often comes with fees stemming from job postings, third-party agencies, and the costs of maintaining an internal recruiting team. When recruiting internally, not only are these costs often minimized or avoided completely, but research suggests that internal hires require a shorter ramp-up period than those hired externally, leading to greater productivity in less time.
Moreover, strong internal mobility practices can underpin an organization’s succession planning strategy, as organizations develop the infrastructure to better identify and develop high-performing talent. This, in turn, helps to reduce vacancies in business-critical positions, ensuring business continuity and long-term success. Internal mobility can also reinforce overall talent readiness and talent reallocation efforts that may accompany strategic headcount decisions (e.g., downsizing, reorganization, etc.). When organizations have a clear understanding of their employee’s capabilities and skills, they are better able to utilize their internal talent resources.
Lastly, Internal mobility can also be an important part of an organization’s leadership diversity strategy. While many companies have a diverse employee population among their more entry-level and professional positions, many are still working towards an equivalent level of representation among their leadership ranks. An intentional internal mobility program can help employers to develop more junior talent within their organization to assume future leadership positions.
Utilizing Horsefly for your Internal Mobility Strategy
When looking to establish or enhance a world-class internal mobility strategy, Horsefly customers can:
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Leverage the platform’s Job Title Projections capability to gain insights into the most common market career pathways and inform your organization’s efforts to develop internal employee development programs.
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Utilize the platform’s Keyword functionality to better understand the most common skills and jobs responsibilities for specific roles across the talent market, further informing your own internal job infrastructure and development pathways.
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Use the platform’s talent supply and demand data to identify those job profiles or skill sets that may be difficult or costly to recruit externally, and thus may warrant increased investment and programming into one’s internal talent market.
Maximizing the strengths and skill sets of existing top-tier employees is a growing trend that continues to gain momentum in an ever-evolving global talent market. Leveraging Horsefly Analytics’s Global Labor Market Intelligence platform enables practitioners to make the most effective and data-driven decisions when determining whether or not their organization should look outwards when trying to fill open roles or new positions, or develop existing talent from within.
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We look forward to partnering with you to help you best leverage Horsefly’s talent analytics and labor market data to make smarter hiring and strategic decisions within your organization. To learn more, sign up for a free labor market analysis here.
