The People Have Spoken, and Talent Mobility is the Future: How to Create a Standout Growth Experience for Your Workforce

Carina Cortez
Chief People Officer
Katie Ballantyne
Vice President of Global Learning Strategy & Innovation
Automatic Summary

Seizing the Future with Talent Mobility

Hello and welcome to our session on Talent Mobility, the future of career advancement and organizational success. Our technology-driven world holds many opportunities for employees to shape their careers, and equally, for organizations to support their teams. The right strategic approach, supported by the right technology, can empower employees to tackle their next career move and enhance their job fitness while fostering a culture of growth and productivity.

A New Dawn: The Rise of the Omnidirectional Career Path

Long gone are the days when employees desired linear career advancements within an organization. Today's working class view career advancement as an opportunity to explore various paths, take on different roles, learn and grow. Interestingly, it has become apparent through our internal research at Cornerstone that a staggering 56 % of today's workers are unsure of their career paths or do not see any opportunities for growth within their organization. Consequently, this has led to an uptick of 68% in the number of employees who would consider staying longer in a company if job changing processes were made easier.

So, how do we, as leaders, make workplace satisfaction a reality for our teams? One answer lies in the provision of omnidirectional career paths - allowing employees the flexibility to move freely within the organization, exploring diverse roles, tasks, and sectors. Putting this into practice involves reimagining the traditional careers conversation between managers and their teams to better identify and fulfill their specific needs.

The Role of Technology in Talent Mobility

Technology is rapidly becoming an employee expectation as they seek career advancement. Tools that can help employees understand the steps they need to take for their career advancement are seen as essential enablers. Research shows that 80% of employees prefer starting their career search using self-service technology. In fact, employees with access to such self-service technology are 50% more likely to stay with their organizations.

Integrating technology into the career growth architecture not only signals to the employees that they matter, but also that they have a place and a future in the organization.

Leveraging Manager's Support

Managers play a crucial role in an employee's career journey. Our research shows a strong relationship between manager support and employee satisfaction. Encouraging managers to act as advocates for their teams and connecting them to opportunities can significantly boost employee's sense of worth, which in turn amplifies employee retention.

Ultimately, fostering a talent mobility culture within organizations creates a more robust and flexible workforce, propelling both the employees' and the organization's success. Hence, our three key takeaways:

  • Increase visibility of opportunities within the organization
  • Embrace and integrate technology in your talent management process
  • Reap the retention benefits that come with a well-executed talent mobility strategy

Please feel free to reach out to us for any queries as you nurture a culture of growth and development within your organization. Your success is our success. Let's shape the workforce of the future, today!


Video Transcription

Well, hello everyone and welcome to our session today on the People have.

Hi everyone. I'm sorry, it appears like we're having a little bit of some tech technical difficulties with our Chief people officer um Kina Cortez, who was just introducing this session about the people who have spoken and talent mobility is the future. She's just rejoining and here in a second, she'll be introducing herself, but we're really excited to be here today and talk about the completely changing landscape of how people are wanting to look for their careers, look for that next opportunity in their career and then also move forward and how technology can support people in doing that.

And hi Karina, I just did the intro on the session and so it's perfect timing for you to intro

yourself. Awesome. Well, hello everyone. I am Karina Cortez who likes to apparently float in and out of presentations and put my co presenter on the spot. So thank you Katie for, for picking that up. I am the Chief People Officer at Cornerstone on demand. And really what I enjoy doing is help leaders be better leaders as well as to marry the people priorities of an organization with the business objectives of the organization. And I'm really honored today to be able to core with you um with Katie, um who is also from Cornerstone. So Katie, if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself, thanks

Karina. And I too, I was just thrilled about this moment and this day and being able to be together because I think you and I have always connected from the beginning about that just unbridled passion for how we can help people be the best version of themselves at, within an organization and then how we can also marry that into the needs of the business.

So everyone, um I lead our global learning strategy and innovation here at Cornerstone. And so I get the privilege of connecting our customers, corners stars and partners with the learning and development they need and want in order to be successful. So it's a wonderful position and I'm very proud to be able to do it for cornerstone. So Karina, as we look at the landscape of where we are today, and I think about your incredible career within, you know, the people industry in, in, in multiple verticals. Can you tell me about what's going on right now? That's different about talent mobility than what we've seen in the past?

Absolutely. Yeah, it seems baffling to me that I've been in the industry for um more than uh 20 some years now. And so I've seen a lot of change. And most particularly at this moment in time, from a talent mobility standpoint, long gone are those days of people wanting to have in general a lateral career path. And so I feel like I learned best through stories. And so I want to just share my own story of as I was growing and much more junior in my career. There were times I actually had to take a step back. Um And I was very, very honored and um excited that I had the opportunity to do that in one of the organizations I was in. And uh I just had two small Children realized that I couldn't keep doing what I was doing uh for a period of time. And so I was able to stay step back into more of for me, an operational role, uh which actually benefited my career. Gr quite greatly, I was able to work closely with an executive, learned how to manage a budget, uh put together a strategy, but also it is better to define, you know, what my working day might look like.

And in addition, after that, once I realized, OK, I was ready to kind of get back into being a little bit more um on demand. Um More of those longer days that, that were needed for certain roles that I was interested in. At the time, I was um actually asked to go lead a different part of the organization. And so it was tapped by one of the leaders that I worked with to move into a much different realm of human resources than I was expecting to be on. And so it's with that in mind that, you know, I, I think that we can't just think of people as wanting to grow in one particular area, but really seeing where they want to move across and maybe into different parts of the organization or even with the functions that they're in.

And so being able to have that flexibility is really, really important. Um And being able to help people identify where they can find that flexibility and organization is really critical as well. And in fact, through our own research at cornerstone, um of what we've done, we find that more than half or 56% of today's workers just don't even know where their career is going in the organization or are even able to see any opportunities in their own organization. And additionally, another 68% of workers say they would stay longer at their current organization if changing jobs was made easier. And so this is just really critical in order to make sure that one you have are showing your employees what opportunities are available. But I even think if you look back to the example I just provided about myself having conversations with individuals, you know, that's the the biggest in, in my mind of just having those conversations, having those dialogues, not assuming that, you know, what's going on with someone, but, but really making sure that managers and employees are, are, are having these opportunities to chat and what opportunities are you doing?

Uh giving them to facilitate that type of a conversation? Um So I think it's really, you know, again, just to kind of summarize what I said, just really making sure that there are omnidirectional career paths for individuals if you will and really reimagining um the conversations that you might need to have with an individual to really get out their own specific needs of what they want out of their overall career journey.

Um Katie would love to just turn it back to you and, and get some additional insights from you as well.

I think it's so interesting what you said as well about the value that different type of types of opportunities can create. I think maybe there are times where we've been, you know, quite accustomed to some very prescriptive career path. And this is how you will get from A to Z where we don't realize that these opportunities in between enrich us and grow us in a way that, you know, a traditional career ladder may not have. And, and you spoke a lot, you know, there are so many different jobs I think about it. Like when I was at university studying hr and industrial relations and I had a vision of where my career was gonna go and then I achieved that and I was, you know, at a certain age and I'm like, oh my gosh, what do I do next? I just didn't know. Right. I just didn't know about all of these different careers and avenues. I was operating within the information that I had available to me. Not really understanding that there were so many more opportunities available and that's what we see is going on right now.

right? What does the World Economic Forum say, like 97 million new jobs by 2025? You know, it's so hard for people to even know what jobs exist or what, what they might even be interested in. So I think what's really, what's fascinating to me is how technology is now becoming an expectation of what people want and need in order to have this discovery. And Karina, I kind of liken it to how people have jumped onto the power of generative A I and you've got these very forward thinkers who are like, how does this make me more productive? How does this help me move faster? How how does this help me in my job? People are looking for tools as well that are going to help them understand how to make these talent mobility steps in their jobs, like they're looking for this technology to be an enabler for them. So, so Karina, when I think about this and and I think about what we can do within our businesses surrounding career development. I'm like wondering to myself, you know, what can we do to help people have stronger talent and mobility experiences and how do we support them as an organization?

Absolutely. Yes. And so to your point, Katie, um recognizing that technology is now table stakes, it's, it's going to be a great enabler for many things. Um And since we're talking about talent mobility today, um let's kind of dig into that a little bit more. And so as we were just talking about just this personalized approach to growth, we are all unique, we are all individuals. Um I know Katie and I have very different paths of how we came into hr and then moving, moving into different roles um within our own career journeys here. Um And so being able to use technology to personalize that uh a growth path for individuals is, is going to be critical and the stat on the board is just astounding to me. Um but not super surprising. And what I mean by that is this is saying that women are about 33% more likely than men to say that they would like to explore projects to help them learn, learn new or different skills. And what that that really gets into is they want to know what's available to them before they even engage in a conversation with their manager or leader about what's next for them.

And so thinking to how technology can enable this if you have a platform within your organization, which shows what opportunities might be available to a person and particularly a woman, they will take that and then be able to have a better conversation um with their manager.

And so really, it's about meeting people where they're at. And then Katie, I think if you click more, there's one more stat on here, which I also found really interesting is that people under the age of 45 are about 50% more likely than those over 45 to say they would like to explore projects that develop new connections and mentors.

So again, about uh 50% more likely um to want to explore different projects, to develop those connections and mentors is astounding as well. And so again, just having visibility can help promote and facilitate a conversation which at the end of the day, if you're trying to keep people within your organization versus them, going to look out side of that for the next opportunity, this is going to be really critical and with mentoring, just for me, um I find that forced mentoring uh tends to be really challenging.

And most of the ways that I've met, my mentors has been much more organic in nature. But again, just kind of knowing what's out there and being able to approach someone, a mentoring perspective to say, hey, I see that you have this, I'm interested in growing this skill. Can help facilitate that more organic process through technology. And so it's almost marrying that forced with the organic in order to help facilitate that that conversation,

Karina, if I may on that one as well, I think there's also a huge value these days as we embrace a work from wherever works for you. Culture, I think it can also be hard for people to know who they can even go to for a mentor. So, you know, you like, and as people worry then about their network shrinking within a business, this can be such a great way, especially for maybe people newer in their careers or you know, who, who are less. I, I don't know, looking for a bit bit of a confidence increase or, or, or some of these opportunities that help them curate, um you know, more curate, more experiences that are going to help them get to that next step. It's a really great way to help people expand their reach through a business as well. Yeah,

I think what you're saying, it's a great equalizer. So regardless of if you're in the office or if you're remote or you are in a hybrid state, like many of us are today, you have this one way that you can go to get that information.

It's a fantastic point. I think as well. Then as we talk into what you're saying with tapping into technology, what we've found fascinating is that 80% of employees are saying that they want to start their search using self-service technology. And when I look at this, I think that it makes a lot of sense in my opinion, going and looking and even being interested in another job in a business, it can be a little bit risky. You don't necessarily know if it's going to be something that is celebrated and revered or is it going to be something that is going to cause you angst within your, your relationship with your direct leader? So I think a lot of people want that opportunity to go and have a safe way to say, oh, is this something I've even want to be interested in? Is this something that would even, you know, be fruitful for me before they even go and broach the conversation with their leader? And I also do think that it's very reflective of what people want within their careers these days, which is technology that enables them within their job.

They're looking for a consumer grade experience in their everyday digital experience at work. Now, here's the one that I love and that we found this, we uncovered it during in cornerstone's own uh research surrounding talent mobility. And what we found is that employees who have access to this self-service technology are 50% more likely to stay within their organizations. So, if we think about what's going on right now with the fact that it's still hard to find certain skilled talent. It is still hard to compete for jobs, especially in certain industries. Right now. More than ever, the employee value proposition has become imperative to how we encourage people into our organizations and how we encourage people to stay retention is an imperative for us as a business.

And just by showing people the opportunities just by communicating to people in that way that they matter, they have a place in your business, they could have a future in your business. They're going to be more likely to stay. So, Karina, I look at this one and I'm like, oh my gosh, immediate possible engagement boost, like who wouldn't want to be embracing this and doing it. It sounds like a pretty obvious step to take and a and a pretty great win to be able to have.

Absolutely. Yeah, Katie, I wholeheartedly agree.

OK. So Karina, I think that this is a really interesting one now. So we've got access to technology, we've got ways that we're connecting people differently with mentors and opportunities. So let's talk about the role of leveraging manager support because managers are, are an absolute imperative here, right?

They, they can make or break this type of a situation. And our research definitely showed us this. So it showed us that when managers are demonstrating behaviors that are supportive towards growth and development within the business, people are far more likely to say they are happy and no plans to leave, you can see like this is an insane inverse relationship that we see right here.

And I think that this is absolutely understandable like that opportunity for a leader to be an advocate to, you know, amplify the work that if somebody is doing and to be able to help connect them to opportunity, of course, that would feel like a huge investment. But we also do have that challenge of what happens if, if a leader looks like they are talent hoarding. And when we think about that as a challenge, it is that, you know, talent hoarding is something that can be prevented as prevented by ensuring that there's, you know, good backfill of people that people, leaders are rewarded for creating opportunity. And Karina, you shared with me a wonderful way to look at the leader metrics surrounding this. Would you mind sharing it

for sure. Yeah. And so one of the things that I've noticed throughout my career and to the point that that Katie's making exactly is a lot of managers want to keep their team intact. They don't want their people to move into other organizations. So they're hoarding that talent and really as managers and leaders in an organization and in particular, in the role that I play as leading up the entire hr function, I really need to help level up our leaders and managers to think about our, our employees across the entire enterprise, their knowledge, their institutional knowledge that they have is much better to stay within our company versus walking out that door.

So my point of that being, if a person is interested in moving to another manager or another part of the overall organization, let's help encourage that. And so, um a couple of things that I've done at previous organizations and that I'd like to start introducing here at Cornerstone as well is really looking at people who are attractors of talents. And so they're, they're net attractors and also those who are net promoters. And so people who are moving outside of their organization, these are the leaders who are really thinking more holistically about keeping talent in the organization overall. And they're able to have people be compelled to join their own organization. And likewise, they are great and OK with individuals who are looking to move outside of their organization as well. And so this is a great way to measure and look at, hey, are we facilitating this type of mindset within our organization and allowing for that talent mobility across the enterprise? And as Katie was saying, given the current market dynamics, we really want to do as much as we can to ensure that we are engaging and retaining those individuals within our, our own organization.

Yeah, so

I was just like tractor. It's just such a wonderful way to look at it. I'm like, oh, I want to be a net attractor in life. Yeah, without a doubt, he takeaways,

we are um almost done with our session, which is amazing as time just flew by. So just to leave you with the, the three takeaways that we have. Um One is just let's increase visibility of opportunities within an organization. A reminder that 73% of workers today want to know about career opportunities within their own organization. Um Also, as we were talking about turning to technology, let's leverage that its table stakes. Now moving forward, employees are 80% more likely to prefer technology over a manager for that first conversation to have for exploring internal career opportunities.

And then if we're doing this, we should be reaping the retention reward. So as we're finding out like more than half of employees say that having these opportunities to explore other career opportunities to develop, to get those mentorships and to be able to apply for their own jobs will make them more likely to stay with our companies and help to, to contribute to our long term success.

Well, thank you all for being here with us today. We have been so um it has been a joy to be able to share this with you and to talk about the opportunities that talent, mobility creates for our businesses. If you would like to reach out to us, here's our contact information and we're also on linkedin. So we're delighted to answer any questions that you have as you foster a culture of growth and development within your organization.

Yes, thanks so much, Katie. Please do reach out and also if you have any learnings to share from your end as well, we'd love to hear those and understand how that's working within your, your organization. I love learning from others as I know Katie does. That's kind of in our DNA. Uh So please reach out and would love to have further conversation with any of you on this topic or anything else. Thanks so much, Katie. Thanks, Karina.

Have a

great day. Thank you.