87% of human resources leaders have placed employee retention attempts as a #1 priority for the next few years. Between burnout and market trends, it’s no wonder retaining talent is on everyone’s mind. One way to drastically improve retention is by offering employees internal opportunities to upskill and reskill. LinkedIn’s 2018 Workforce Learning Report revealed that 93% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their careers. So, on one hand we have employees who are eager to upskill and on the other we have organizations vying to retain talent. How do you, as an HR leader, bridge that gap in your organization? It starts with implementing a Talent Management System (TMS) and an internal talent mobility program.
What is a TMS?
Your TMS is a centralized database of talent information, allowing HR professionals and managers to identify internal candidates for mobility opportunities. This helps build a robust talent pipeline to help your organization make quick changes when necessary and avoid costly recruiting processes.
How your TMS helps talent mobility
Let's say a healthcare organization is made up of a network of hospitals, outpatient care and urgent care facilities. An urgent care location is experiencing a shortage of nurse practitioners (NPs), specifically those with training in respiratory care. This has caused issues providing patients with the best care possible. Through your internal talent mobility program, you can quickly locate nearby NPs with neonatal specialty from other locations and ensure the urgent care has the right staff available to serve their community.
Through your TMS, managers can create comprehensive talent profiles for each employee, highlighting their strengths and development areas. Detailed talent profiles can include skills, training completions, education, known languages, areas of interest, achievements etc. Knowing all this information is increasingly important when it comes to both internal mobility and succession planning.
Succession planning in your TMS
Succession planning allows you to build a well-trained team of individuals who are ready to fill key roles in an organization (like the respiratory NP I described above). The problem with the respiratory NP is that you’re taking staff from one location to give to another and ultimately there will still be a need for an additional NP. Succession planning allows managers to work with their team to deliberately close skill gaps and invest in their employees through performance management and targeted learning and development.
Let’s take another example, in the Department of Health and Human Services, you have a new hiring class of 20 Nurse Is, but you see the need for Nurse IIs and Nurse IIIs. How can your managers help their Nurse Is be promotion-ready? Strategic succession planning can help increase internal upward mobility in your organization and lead to retention. TMS platforms can enable the creation of personalized learning plans and provide access to relevant training resources, whether through e-learning platforms, instructor-led courses, or external content. These systems track employees' learning progress and certifications, ensuring continuous development and upskilling.
Internal talent mobility programs offer a clear path for progression that benefits both the individual and the organization. But even with a well-functioning TMS, it can be difficult to keep up with the needs of an evolving workforce. Download our paper, The new way of learning for the new way of working, to learn how to best meet the needs of your employees.
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