how recruitment and talent mobility combined can help your business thrive in uncertainty.
Current trends and market conditions challenge HR leaders to thoroughly reassess their talent strategies. In the challenging economic climate of late 2022, marked by shifting consumer behavior, hiring freezes, reductions in workforce and a trend towards “quiet quitting,” workforce retention and employee engagement are more critical to business success than ever. Organizations need to deploy a talent strategy that addresses both external and internal talent populations to support successful recruitment and retain talent.
Research shows that 13% of talent looking for a new employer are attracted to organizations that offer internal mobility opportunities, while 88% of your existing talent would stay longer if you invest in development and their career. Lack of career progression is one of the biggest reasons employees quit their jobs.
What’s more, Randstad Sourceright’s 2022 Talent Trends Report shows 1 in 4 companies say they’ve experienced a reduction in profitability as a result of talent scarcity. Thirty-six percent say they’ve experienced higher than normal recruiting costs as a result. As employers face difficulties when recruiting high-demand or niche skills externally, they likely also face high agency costs and must continuously raise compensation rates to attract this talent away from their competitors. These traditional skills acquisition strategies are not sustainable long-time, especially in today’s challenging markets.
Recruiting alone won’t likely deliver (and help you retain) the people who are going to drive your business forward through economic uncertainty. But coupling recruitment with internal skills mapping and a skilling strategy can help you build a sustainable workforce while retaining the talent you invest in daily.
skilling as your competitive talent advantage
At a time when workforce retention and employee engagement are critical to business agility, it’s time to recognize and develop your internal talent. According to HBR, more than 60% of a company’s future roles can be filled by current employees, assuming that adequate mobility, reskilling and development programs are in place.
In addition, according to Randstad Sourceright’s Talent Trends Report, 67% of C-suite leaders have found that internal mobility has positively impacted their businesses in the last year, and 50% of these leaders are committed to making a more substantial investment in the talent they have.
Incorporating a robust talent mobility program within your recruitment strategy ensures higher retention and role satisfaction while enhancing your overall brand to help attract and retain people, and to show a discerning market that you put people first. According to LinkedIn research, employees who make an internal move are more likely to stay at their organization longer than those who stay in the same role.
Internal mobility programs also have a positive impact on employee referrals, and job seekers are becoming increasingly drawn to opportunities with good career development. From a cost perspective, Wharton research shows that external hires cost 18 to 20% more than those promoted from within the organization.
These cost savings can also be realized when it comes to retaining great people who already know your business and customers well. Randstad’s global Workmonitor research finds that 70% of workers are open to new opportunities, and 91% are not considering their current employers. Research from Gartner shows that only 33% of employees seeking a new role looked internally at their own employer first.
7 reasons why you should add internal mobility to your recruiting strategy:
1. Support talent attraction.
Learning and career growth are in the top five priorities for job seekers, while 63% of talent acquisition leaders believe that internal mobility accelerates hiring.2. Drive retention of great talent.
Ninety-four percent (94%) of existing talent would stay with their organizations longer if employers invested in their development and careers.3. Show your people they are valuable.
Two in five (41%) workers say they would quit due to lack of career development opportunities, according to McKinsey. Investing in your people can not only stave off attrition, but help you build a more engaged and productive workforce.4. Source the skills you need, even during a hiring freeze.
Internal mobility is a resource for excellent talent, and especially key during hiring freezes, which are more likely to occur during the anticipated recession.5. Build a more sustainable and agile workforce, backed by data.
Establishing a combined program for talent attraction and internal mobility gives you the intelligence and data you need to understand when you should recruit externally versus internally, making it easier to get the needed skills, decreasing time to hire.6. Reduce costs.
It’s estimated that 60% of job vacancies could be filled with internal talent, and at a much lower cost than when hiring externally, according to HBR. And Talent Trends data also shows that employers are seeing higher recruitment costs than normal as a result of talent scarcity.7. Protect your reputation and brand.
While layoffs might negatively impact your employer brand, redeploying talent and offering talent mobility gives your brand a boost. This is important to both your ability to retain and recruit in-demand talent, and to your overall brand reputation, which matters to today’s consumers.
According to a PwC pulse survey, the ability to hire and retain talent is both the most important factor (77%) and biggest risk (48%) when it comes to an organization’s ability to reach its growth goals. It will become increasingly more important if a recession creates greater market competition. If you want to attract new talent and have current talent to consider you, a people-centric talent strategy that addresses the needs of talent to develop new skills and progress their career internally can be the answer.