Best Practices For Talent Mobility

The leaders of tomorrow are always expected to have a view of the business that is holistic since they aim to push the topline and bottom-line. The view of the employees to build skill, interestingly, aligns with the expectations of the future organizations. A research by LinkedIn on what entices a professional for a new job came out with results where 31% of Indian respondents reported it to be professional development opportunities. A PwC talent mobility report states that 93 percent of Indian millennials want to work outside their country of residence. The Talent Mobility, from an HR leaders' perspective, is hence inevitable to provide those moments which impact and build the depth and breadth of skills and experiences.

Some of the most progressive organizations have taken such insights into action and have started building robust talent mobility practices.

Best practices
The 'more aware' millennials, contrary to traditional patterns, are taking over the workforce and career paths have shortened. To retain top talent, companies are providing quick mobility options. The policies and processes, at Evalueserve, are geared towards providing more opportunities for mobility both internally and externally, geographically or otherwise. In order to provide opportunities to build new skills, a practice is in place on a 6 month basis.

Talent mobility is a horizontal that should be at the core of all talent practices. Imbibing this mantra, the mining conglomerate, Vedanta, focusses on flexibility as a key competency while hiring and mandating mobility after every three years. Leaders from Vedanta also travel and change locations as a part of the global leadership programs. This not only includes Indian employees traveling abroad but also bringing in employees from other locations to India.

At the Taj group, where 40% of revenue comes from business outside India, there are unstructured opportunities for employees to move to different locations on project basis early on, add value to the community and then come back.

Mobility after every 3 years is encouraged at Schneider, which is very similar to Vedanta. The multiple functions enable opportunities to move around and ensures a competitive advantage. An internal job market is in place by using a common platform for both local and international opportunities.  

Benefits
To be able to crack the unknown benefits of talent mobility, Royal Bank of Scotland presents a classic case. The RBS is a global organization with a workforce of 5 generations and they build strategy to suit all groups.  It has been successfully able to re-deploying 90% of its senior resources in different lines of businesses as it winds down its bank assets. The success of this re-deployment lied in the fact that they had a very strong talent philosophy at an organizational level and not specific to functions/skills.

Challenges ahead
Talent mobility, for any organization, is pivotal to grow. There are certain challenges organizations need to overcome while building such practices. Not all employees are willing to take up opportunities to move and that's a big challenge. Due to employees investing their time and effort to establish themselves as an expert, mobility may not resonate with them. Identifying roles which are mobile and immobile is another challenge that HR leaders face. A transparent dialogue with the employee and identifying how mobility aligns with the overall business strategy is the solution to these challenges.