We’ve heard all about it for several years now: the world of work has changed. In the coming decade, Baby Boomers will retire and the much-ballyhooed millennials will make up the majority of the workforce.
It’s a different world than a generation or two ago. The best and the brightest – the very people organizations are desperate to recruit and retain – will not be tied down to a single company or a one-dimensional career path anymore. Millennials prefer a "career lattice" to a comfortable career path – 50% of working millennials believe "switching jobs helps you climb the corporate ladder faster" (versus 37% of Baby Boomers) (MTV "No Collar Worker" survey, 2011)
Just plugging in warm bodies to open requisitions obviously doesn’t cut it: 42% of all employees are looking for a new job because they feel their current role doesn’t make good use of their skills and abilities (Deloitte Talent 2020, September 2012)
The challenges facing HR are tough.
A key way to tackle these vexing problems is talent mobility, which doesn’t mean just keeping the headcount numbers right – it’s a fundamental way to make sure that your organization remains agile enough to not only cover staffing needs, but also to hit sales targets, be responsive to customers, and get products to market on time. It’s about the bottom line.
We’ve written about how, in today’s talent environment, a company’s agility trumps efficiency as a predictor of success. When we talk about "agility" we talk about how your organization can react to changes in the marketplace, recognize and close employee skill gaps, and align the right people in the right places to handle any pivots in business strategy.
A critical way that organizations stay agile is through talent mobility.
Hyatt is a great example of a company that gets the importance of talent mobility as a driver of bottom line impact. In this case the impact comes in how Hyatt associates provide an exceptional guest experience at hotels around the world (in other words, the mission critical skill for any hospitality chain).
With a growing portfolio of hotel brands, Hyatt’s talent team sought to gain a better understanding of its associates in its Americas region in order to respond more quickly to internal demand for talent. To do this, Hyatt turned to Cornerstone OnDemand's unified talent management system (specifically, Cornerstone Performance and Cornerstone Succession).
"We created a career resume and preferences option, which allowed our colleagues to let us know what they wanted to do in tandem with their experience," said Randy Goldberg, vice president of talent at Hyatt. "We've since seen a 53 percent increase in movement between Hyatt brands and hotels in North America. There's a better understanding of the opportunities, and people feel they have even more options from a career standpoint."
A big part of it is having access to the right data at the right time. Hyatt is now able to more effectively develop employees throughout their careers by having access to real-time talent and performance data, allowing better (1) identification of high-potential associates, (2) sourcing of internal talent, and (3) delivery of personalized development.
Of course, talent mobility is a two-way street. Not only does Hyatt now have a better top-down sense of future talent supply and demand, but Hyatt associates themselves are better engaged in their careers with Hyatt and have a clearer understanding of how their daily work contributes to the Hyatt mission.
Hear more about how talent mobility plays out at Hyatt:
And please see Bill Kutik sit down with Hyatt's vice president of talent to discuss the company's approach to building a great employee experience:
