Talent Management Processes

Internal Mobility: Platform Capability

by Taleo Research

A successful internal mobility process is best designed after clearly defining the initiative’s purpose and goals, and in conjunction with articulating a formal business policy. The design of an internal mobility process must focus on good communication of internal opportunities, as well as efficiency in managing internal candidates.

Is it as easy, or even easier, for your employees to find out about and become a candidate for a job within your company, compared to learning about and applying to an outside opportunity?

Taleo Research studied the internal mobility practices of more than 70 large and global corporations to better understand how to facilitate that process. Of particular interest is the finding that companies are nearly unanimous (96%) in the use of Intranet technologies for internal job posting¹. Let’s take a closer look at aspects of the technologies behind successful internal mobility initiatives.

As reported in the Taleo Research study Internal Mobility, 89 percent of companies use staffing automation technology to support the internal mobility process. This technology, which can leverage the tremendous efficiency of self-serve processes, may power an internal Careers site. At its best, it can consist of a database of employee profiles, and include job posting functions, a skills library, and workforce planning modules.

Overall levels of satisfaction with technology used to support the internal mobility initiative are mixed. Satisfaction with internal mobility technology is highest with the automation of posting job opportunities to an Intranet, with which 71 percent of respondents report being satisfied (24%) or very satisfied (47%). However, only half of respondents (49%) report satisfaction with their current online internal mobility technology’s performance for managing responses from employees.

An employee skills inventory database maintains profiles of employees, their skills and abilities, for use in matching to internal opportunities. It may also be used for skills gap analysis and training. With a skills inventory database based on a robust technology platform, organizations can benefit from being able to mine a transparent internal labor pool and profit from a clear understanding of the human capital it controls . Two-thirds of survey respondents (65%) consider an employee skills database to be important to the success of an internal mobility initiative.

Corporations can create a library of organizational skills, competency models and standardized job templates, and create profile questions that are unique to the internal audience. Self-service web-based staffing management solutions empower employees to create and update personal profiles and apply for career opportunities. Profile-based job agents efficiently inform employees automatically of opportunities matching their skills and interests.

Having a skills inventory database allows an organization to allocate resources optimally, re-deploying employees as needed. It creates a positive productivity boost in corporations that can identify needs, translate them into a common language and fill internal positions in a timely and quality fashion. Matching a skills database with a database of employee profiles enables strategic workforce planning, matching existing talent assets to present and future requirements. The routine and expensive friction (the inefficiency of the communication between corporation and individual) in filling positions is mitigated; opportunity costs can be reduced.

Technology Enabler

For an internal mobility initiative to attain its goals, it is important to streamline the processes of informing employees about opportunities and managing employee responses. Corporations have already embraced the Intranet as the key platform for their internal mobility programs. Technology developments enable the attainment of an even higher level of efficiency and effectiveness. Today’s staffing automation solutions enable organizations to power internal mobility programs with standard skills defined in a structured data format. Databases of skills and employee profiles make effective automated matching of human capital assets to a corporation’s talent requirements possible .

¹Internal Mobility, Taleo Research 2003. Available at www.taleo.com