Enabling employee career choices with digital tools

A common problem facing HR in many organisations - you have outstanding employees and want to keep them in the business. With many industries facing talent and skill shortages and job-hopping becoming the norm, the future looks tough for HR.  Talent mobility is seen as the answer to future-proof the organisation.

Organisations are flatter than they once were and employees are more impatient than ever to progress.  Mobility can't be defined as just being 'upwards'. Career advancements now need to be sideways and mean cross-functional 'tours' , or even across geographies. Rarely do organisations have the resources to career counsel everyone - so what digital tools can be deployed to make this easier?

HR can enable career paths can take shape by giving employees mapping tools to explore their options – and that there’s no need to look outside of the company for progression.  In our work with clients we’ve witnessed a strengthening of organisations engaging their people in their own career planning and career path mapping.

Imagine if you had an online tool to help with developing this career path.

It could play out something like this.

A sales person, John, wants to know about the career options in his company – and what he can do to make them a reality. 

The HR team is keen to keep him engaged and have given him access to an online tool, Talent Navigator®, so he can explore different career options and career paths. 

He gets started by thinking about and searching for different roles, and finding out a little more about them. Perhaps he is interested in ‘Project Management’ or ‘Marketing’. In which case, he can search for roles with these words within the job title. Perhaps he wants to look at positions in certain locations – or those which are ‘Head of’ a team or department. He can look for these roles easily. 

But he needs to know if his skills compare with those needed in a new role – and Talent Navigator® gives him a percentage fit with what he has now – and he can see what skills he needs to acquire or develop.

So what next? 

John can now prioritise his learning and development based on these career paths.

He can either look to focus on the most commonly occurring skills gaps, or choose to work on those skills gaps that are the biggest.

And he can then see what he can undertake from what is available to help close those gaps and realize his ambitions. I

t's a win-win. John feels he has can set out a career path and know what he needs to focus on to acquire the skills he needs. Whilst those in HR have provided the tool to make this happen - and are more likely to retain a great salesperson.

Talent Navigator is a quick way to bring your role profiles to life and provide a simple mechanism for employees to explore career paths and alternatives - and identify action they can take to advance themselves.

Take a look at our short video to see how our Talent Navigator tool works.

If you'd like to take a closer look, then do get in touch for a demo.