Looking to hire top talent at your organization?
You’ve probably got a recruiter posting available positions on popular job boards, visiting career fairs, searching LinkedIn or scouring industry and trade groups to find qualified candidates.
But in your hiring efforts, you may be overlooking a highly valuable group of people: your own employees. After all, your best candidates are often the people you already have invested significantly in.
As part of any well-rounded, comprehensive hiring strategy, you need an internal talent marketplace.
What is an internal talent marketplace?
An internal talent marketplace is a vehicle for employees to find a range of opportunities within their current company. Most commonly, these opportunities focus on:
- Brand-new or open jobs.
- Projects in need of team members to support them.
- Short-term needs for certain skill sets.
An internal talent marketplace could be as simple as a digital job board to as complex as an artificial intelligence- (AI-) enabled platform that matches employees with available opportunities based on their skill set and career goals.
Usually, an internal talent marketplace lives on a company Intranet or an employee portal, so it is visible and accessible to current employees only.
And, as we’ll discuss, implementing an internal talent marketplace is win-win for employers and employees alike.
9 benefits of internal talent marketplaces
1. Save time and money
Hiring externally consumes a lot of your resources – both people and financial. Plus, the entire process, from job posting to application review, candidate selection, interviewing and hiring can be a lengthy, months-long endeavor. Once hired, new employees must be onboarded, introduced to the company culture and trained in their role. And there’s always the risk that a new hire won’t work out and you have to start all over again.
For employers, an internal talent marketplace is a critical tool to build an internal talent pipeline, leverage existing talent and help fill positions more efficiently and cost effectively. This is especially helpful in ultra-competitive labor markets.
Existing employees are already:
- Known to you and vetted.
- Familiar with your organization and its mission, vision, values, culture and practices.
- Trained.
- Proven to perform in their current role.
2. Support skill expansion and employee development
Employees crave opportunities for growth and development. Most people aren’t satisfied with a static situation long term – they want to know that there are diverse opportunities to explore and aspire to within their current company, and that their employer will help them get there.
An internal talent marketplace provides definitive, visual proof that these opportunities exist. Many companies say they offer a path for growth, but launching an internal talent marketplace puts the concept into action for all to see.
By showcasing jobs, projects and temporary gigs at the company, internal talent marketplaces give employees the opportunity to:
- Upskill and reskill to close knowledge and skills gaps so they can advance upward and adapt to evolving workplace or industry trends.
- Cross-train in other areas of the business to improve institutional knowledge and gain more visibility into what other teams do.
3. Spread innovation
Encouraging internal mobility throughout the organization:
- Breaks down silos.
- Promotes communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing.
- Exposes them to new ideas.
- Enables the infusion of fresh perspectives.
4. Unleash productivity
When employees can voluntarily pursue additional projects or temporary work at their company beyond their primary responsibilities, their employer benefits from the resulting burst in productivity and increased revenue. In exchange, employees get the experience, knowledge and development they desire.
5. Help employees build out their networks
By engaging in projects and gigs and shifting into new roles, employees can meet more people throughout the organization and forge a broader set of professional connections. These can lead to mentorships and recommendations for new opportunities.
6. Make the promotion process more visible and equitable
Promotions are the ultimate motivator and reward for employees.
Yet a common complaint surrounding promotions is that many employees aren’t aware of the opportunities available to them. The whole process can feel a bit mysterious and opaque and, in some worst cases, discriminatory.
With an internal talent marketplace, each employee can see all open opportunities, along with their responsibilities and skill requirements. This levels the playing field and gives everyone who’s interested and qualified a chance to apply. It also enables employees to identify any skills gaps that they can address for the future.
7. Assist with career pathing
An internal talent marketplaces is an important tool for career pathing, which is an exercise between managers and employees that maps how team members can optimally move through the organization to get from their current role to their ultimate ambition. Career pathing lets employees solidify and plan out the steps they need to accomplish based on their interests, skills and overall goals. With an internal talent marketplace, employees can seize these opportunities as they become available.
8. Aid in succession planning
A more advanced internal talent marketplace that centralizes information on employees’ skills and experience can even help HR professionals and senior managers identify star employees who are leadership material or who are ready to move into high-value leadership roles immediately.
This is incredibly important for succession planning, which is the process of selecting new people to step into leadership roles after their occupants retire or leave the company.
9. Engage and retain employees
All of the benefits listed here ultimately help to enhance the employee experience and increase feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment in team members. When employees know about the available next opportunities before them and understand what’s required to achieve them, they tend to be more engaged and more likely to stay with their company for the long term.
Furthermore, there is now a well-established direct link between employee development and retention.
A few challenges to keep in mind
Verify that your internal talent marketplace:
- Is easy for employees to find and access online.
- Provides a seamless, user-friendly application process.
- Delivers a consistent experience across your workforce, with the same standards and fair opportunity for all.
Also make sure that no employee experiences retaliation or discipline for pursuing a new role internally, or that certain managers aren’t hoarding talent by refusing to allow employees to apply via the marketplace.
Lastly, consider the following:
- What’s your plan to backfill roles occupied by employees who have moved elsewhere in the organization?
- Sometimes, promoting internally versus hiring externally can lead to stagnation in compensation. So your organization doesn’t lag behind its competition, establish a compensation structure in advance.
- Although hiring and promoting from within offer several advantages, don’t forget to strike a balance between internal and external candidates. It’s also beneficial to bring in external talent to incorporate fresh perspectives and spur innovation. Plus, you’ll want to keep all avenues open to discover your next great hire.
Summing it all up
Whether it’s a simple digital job board or a powerful platform that matches employees with internal opportunities, an internal talent marketplace is a must for any company looking to hire smarter and get more savvy about engaging and retaining employees. Internal talent marketplaces offer key advantages for both employers and employees, from saving the company time and money when hiring to giving employees the chance to grow, develop, progress in their careers and get promoted – without ever leaving the company.
To learn more about how to effectively engage employees and positively impact retention, download our free magazine: The Insperity guide to employee engagement.