Jason Leverant serves as the President and Chief Operating Officer of the AtWork Group, an award-winning national staffing firm.
Companies that prioritize internal mobility gain a competitive advantage in recruitment and retention. Unlock the hidden potential of your team by honing your internal hiring strategy.
While the number of job openings slowed in the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate remains low. Job gains were also reported in the healthcare, financial activities, transportation, warehousing and social assistance sectors in February. Finding qualified employees can be challenging in a tight labor market.
When the talent search is competitive, you can turn to referrals, recent graduates and candidates who may not actively be looking for a new role. But your best resource may be closer than you think. It is important to mine your top talent pool—your current workforce.
Often, when it comes to hiring, businesses tend to want a person who is new, fresh or different. In some cases, this strategy can be good, especially if you feel like your organization needs significant change. Yet, most of the time, there are already valuable people on your team who have the skills, the abilities and, importantly, the desire to take on a new role. Typically, they are already familiar with the business and have proven their worth.
Focusing on internal hiring can boost workplace morale and increase employee retention. Internal hiring is a powerful solution to staffing challenges. Building a culture of mobility takes time and effort. It requires implementing strategies to identify internal candidates, training and providing development pathways for employees.
Identifying Internal Candidates
Depending on the size of your business, mining the skills of internal candidates can be challenging. It requires collaborating with your existing team and setting up formal performance metrics.
• Performance Reviews: Establish a structured evaluation system to help identify high-performing employees. This can also provide a forum to highlight areas of improvement for staff members who may not be reaching their full potential.
• Manager Feedback: Encourage managers and peers to recommend employees who show promise. Their insights can help ensure the person is right for the new role.
• Career Aspiration Surveys: Engage employees through surveys to understand their career goals to identify people who are willing to take on a new role. At least 51% of employees are actively searching for a new role. Allowing them to tackle something new can improve retention and enhance workplace morale.
Strategies To Boost Internal Hiring
While finding ways to identify internal candidates is important, creating an environment that fosters learning and mobility is key. Implement training programs to prepare employees to handle specialized or leadership roles. You can offer tuition reimbursement, cross-training and mentoring programs to establish an atmosphere of continuous learning.
Fostering a growth mindset requires management to advocate for their employees. It is common for managers to hoard top performers because they can rely on them to do their jobs well. Encourage managers to allow these employees to grow and shine in new roles to increase engagement and highlight the success stories of employees when they take a new internal role. This can be a true test of your managers as well, and those that embrace internal mobility will show you who the true leaders are in your organization!
Having an effective system in place to facilitate internal hiring is also crucial.
• Create an internal job board to allow employees to see titles and descriptions of new opportunities.
• Establish a formal internal recruitment process.
• Offer incentives to managers who hire internally.
Overcoming Internal Hiring Challenges
Hiring internally can create shifts in the power structure of your business, and you will need to ensure employees have the resources they need in their new role to be successful. Whether it is additional training, leadership coaching or providing extra oversight as they get started, it is vital to have the tools they need to succeed in their new role.
Internal hiring also creates a domino effect. An empty role is filled, but you will have to find a replacement for the internal hire. Being transparent and taking steps to minimize the impact will help.
When you hire internally, you run the risk of creating friction between existing employees. Although I had less tenure at AtWork than many of my colleagues when I was promoted to the chief operating officer position, I focused on proving my ability by doing good and maintaining open communication to address potential resentment.
Internal hiring is a powerful solution to staffing challenges and helps build an engaged workforce. Once you have the right process to find internal candidates, your existing employees can be your top resource.
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