Talent mobility solutions offer a way for your organization to implement best practices in your workforce strategy. With the help of internal mobility solutions, you can see gaps in your workforce, and anticipate where you need to hire or train. A good solution gives you better oversight of your current staff and a way to implement talent mobility best practices in an effective way.

Your talent mobility strategy should include both internal mobility solutions and external recruiting initiatives. The solution gives you a way to collect, organize, and analyze data about your workforce. This gives your management team the tools they need to comprehensively account for the skill set that’s currently available within your staff, and to project where training and hiring processes should be directed. Another benefit your talent mobility solution offers is the ability to get a full picture of individual employees. This allows your management to increase employee engagement and help foster individual growth.

These solutions complement the traditional succession planning models but make them more productive. You can plan succession to put employees on the path to promotion, but you can also cultivate your talent so that you always have the right mix of expertise to keep your team thriving. The modern workforce might consist of current and past staff members, contractors, vendors, freelancers, and in-house staff, and those who work remotely. Having a talent mobility solution gives your management the tools to truly organize and understand all of the resources in your existing talent pool.

With a more organized understanding of the staff you currently have on hand, you can make better projections and decisions. The talent mobility process allows you to prepare your company for future needs, rather than reacting to situations after they’ve happened. In essence, you’re making sure you have the right staff for the right project at any given time. It also gives your current staff better training options and more incentive to remain with the company for longer tenures.

One talent mobility definition is succession planning. It’s a way to determine the progress of employees throughout your organization. But that definition isn’t complete. Internal talent mobility is a way to assess the talent and skills you currently have within your staff and use them where they’re needed. It also allows you a better oversight to offer training where it will be effective and to recruit outside of the organization when you find areas where your current resources are lacking. Talent mobility is a way to organize your information about your staff so you can move employees when necessary to leverage their skills where they’re needed.

There are two types of internal mobility that companies can use. Many HR teams use both types. In one scenario, the talent mobility solution focuses on project-based mobility. In this scenario, you might have employees from different departments working on one project as a cohesive team. Or you might have one employee work on a project that’s outside of their normal scope of work. Another type of internal mobility involves changing the roles of the employee. This might include promoting from within, but it can also be a vertical role. Moving an employee from one department to another offers a way to train them in more aspects of the workflow. This type of internal mobility allows them to take their expertise from one department to another.

The main goal in talent mobility is in understanding your workforce at every level. This allows you to develop the best protocols for training and growth initiatives so that you have the staff available to promote from within. When employees have clear personal and professional growth potential in your company, they’re more likely to feel that their employment is beneficial for them. It improves employee retention.

Your talent mobility framework is the way that your organization approaches talent mobility. The framework determines how accepted the process is and how well employees and management “buy-in” to the process. For some companies, talent mobility is seen as a way to promote employee retention. The main focus is on providing value (new training initiatives/career growth potential) for employees. This focus is less strategic and typically doesn’t benefit business initiatives as well as it can. At the other end of the spectrum, an internal mobility framework that is strategy-driven also improves employee retention and engagement but focuses on business outcomes. A strategic framework needs “buy-in” throughout the organization, from the top down.

Talent mobility software supports the overall goals in talent mobility. These solutions are designed to give management and employees visibility and transparency in the process so that they can easily see possible options. Your talent mobility platform harnesses the power of artificial intelligence. For management, this means that they can easily see where gaps exist and proactively create solutions to meet employee needs. At the same time, your employees can use the system to map career trajectories, see where there is room to grow within the organization, and take advantage of training initiatives that improve their personal skill set.

Your talent marketplace software gives your management a way to post opportunities and open positions within the company. This gives existing employees the first chance to fill positions. Your management can use this feature to post about short and long-term opportunities within the organization. You can cultivate team members for mentorship roles, permanent positions, and short-term projects. Management can also you the advanced features to help connect existing employee skills with the jobs that they need to fill.

Your talent mobility solution is often focused on the employee. It’s a tool to increase engagement and help your employees plan for long-term success within your company. At the same time, it helps your management with succession planning and at a higher level, it helps improve business outcomes. The talent marketplace offers a way for your management to oversee all of the skills and expertise across your entire organization. This gives them a way to organize departments and projects to project current and future needs. The marketplace also gives them a way to communicate exactly what the company needs to propel growth.

For employees, the marketplace serves as a transparent way to apply for new opportunities. They can plan career growth that they may not have thought of independently. They can also match their skills with open positions across the company to more easily see what they still need training in to secure a position that they plan to grow into. The marketplace gives both managers and employees a tool to plan for future growth.

Managers can use their marketplace platform to give a whole picture of the company workforce and individual employee-level reporting. Access to this information allows management to see where training initiatives are needed.

When researching your talent mobility solutions and talent marketplace options, you should assess your own process with talent mobility. What strategies are you using? Do you have full organization buy-in on talent mobility? Assessing your progress and overall uses can help you decide which solution is most beneficial. A talent marketplace solution offers robust tools, but they’re only advantageous if your company will commit to using them. Your talent mobility solution should offer a better overview of your talent pool for managers, help them understand more proactive ways to engage current staff, and identify when outside recruiting options will be beneficial. For your employees, these solutions mean that they’ll have opportunities to advance their current knowledge and expertise, and they’ll be able to map career growth within your company.