How does artificial intelligence impact talent mobility? But before answering that question, it is important to understand what we mean by AI and talent mobility.
What is AI? Artificial Intelligence refers to the kind of intelligence that is displayed by machines. Experts on AI define it as the study of intelligent agents and the way machines have evolved to aid and even replace human beings in the workplace.
What about talent mobility? Talent mobility means moving the right employees with the right skill sets into the right placements within an organization for maximum alignment to current and future business goals. When talent mobility is carried out, it helps employees to get involved in other areas of specialization, broadening their knowledge, and sharpening their skills.
Let’s now look at how AI impacts talent mobility and some of the challenges faced with internal mobility.
Top Challenges in Internal Mobility
1. The Manager Challenge
Due to the pre-existing structure in most office places, managers usually hoard their best employees in specific departments and leave others to handle themselves one way or the other.
You should note that It is not easy for the managers to just move these best employees to other departments especially when their specialized departments are the major departments moving the company forward. They only want to see a promotion in such departments and neglect the others which should not be so.
There is always a solution and that includes leaving just one out of the best employees in a department to train the new employees being moved to that department. After all, those employees did not just wake up as the best one day. It took a great deal of time so if managers can just have faith in the employees being moved, the company will even have a better chance of growing wider.
For example, Cisco is a company that is well known for its Internal Mobility strategy. In an interview with their head of talent, it was made known that there is a rule that any employee who has been in a position for two or more years has the right to demand to be moved to other departments within the company.
2. The Employee Challenge
This is a huge challenge faced by managers who are actually willing to ensure internal mobility in their workplace because it is one thing to want to move an employee to another department while it is another thing entirely if the employee is willing to be moved.
Various studies have shown that out of 100% of workers, only about 30% are willing to leave their comfort zone and embrace the difficulties of other disciplines. The remaining 70% are so comfortable with their position that they have even turned themselves to authorities in their workplace because they believe no other person can handle it better than them.
Some managers actually agree with such employees and do not move them because they believe, they could actually mess up in the new position but you do not need a soothsayer to say that is very wrong. As a manager, you have the ability to move any employee whether they like it or not. However, the best way to do this is to, first of all, organize a seminar which will teach them why Internal Mobility is necessary and it’s numerous advantages.
3. Strategic Alignment
The aligning of employees to other departments in an organization could also be a cause for worry to most managers especially in a big organization where there is no closeness between the manager and the employees.
It’s easier in a smaller organization whereby the boss can easily study each employee and know another department that he might fit in perfectly because you cannot just dump anybody in some vital departments in an organization lest you risk the collapse of the company.
How Can Artificial Intelligence Help Talent Mobility
1. Making Mobility Better
If you engage the services of Artificial Intelligence, the process of the selection of candidates for any post will be handled by the AI’s algorithm leaving you with zero stress as opposed to you actually selecting thousands of candidates by yourself. Imagine the workload! Even the assignees will have more time to concentrate on their jobs and family, thereby building a better life for themselves instead of burdening themselves with a stressful and almost impossible workload.
2. Identify Top Talent
There are some hidden achievements, skills, work experience, and talent for most people who are looking for a job that ordinarily would be very hard to locate manually due to human capacity. However, an AI system will discover all these within a jiffy and bring it to the attention of the hiring manager because it has been programmed to do so.
3. Prompt Availability of Data
The sourcing of data is another big headache that the mobility team of any organization could go through especially in a large company. It is a very tedious and time-consuming task to manually gather information about the employees of a workplace.
It is even more tedious to store all the data gathered in a single location. However, this is not a problem for the AI system because not only has it been designed to accurately and efficiently store the data of all employees in a single location, but it will also bring out the data as fast as light, that is, within seconds.
4. Better Allocation of Resources
The more an organization engages the use of Artificial Intelligence systems into their everyday routine, the easier it becomes for them to efficiently manage resources and utilize them to the maximum. This system will help in organization, sorting out and faster allocation of the company’s resources to the targeted employees and departments within a short period.
5. The Use of Chatbots
Chatbots will really help new workers placed in other departments quickly answer complex questions that are bothering them because it has been designed to do such. For example, Siri or Alexa is a chatbot.
6. Better Data Analytics
The data volume available in an organization can be easily grown with the use of Artificial Intelligence as AI has beautiful data analysis techniques that make you do the work can in months in days. These analytics can be used to discover an area that is experiencing challenges in the business such as retention of employees and more whilst also bringing up a solution to these challenges.
7. Educate employees about Career Opportunities
The career experience of employees can be improved with the use of Artificial Intelligence as it will instill strong values in them as they move from one department to another in the organization.
8. Fast Decision Making
Human beings in their nature are prone to making errors while making fast decisions but Artificial Intelligence Systems have been designed to take these decisions so fast on your behalf without making any form of error. You might think the making of these decisions might be hard for the system since it cannot reason like a human being but then, the opposite is the case.
9. Access the Viability of the Project
The viability of the project can be easily accessed through Artificial Intelligence systems without any form of issue. It is fast, reliable, and convenient.
10. End Bad Hiring Practices
Every manager in an organization at one point or the other has hired wrongly and these wrong hiring practices can easily put the company at risk so these AI systems also have the capability to put an end to these bad hiring practices by bringing up the job seekers portfolio and matching them with the most appropriate job.
The Future of Talent Mobility
Definitely, the future of talent mobility is a bright one if organizations (big and small) can take it very seriously. It is going to get to a point whereby if there are no already established talent mobility practices in your organization, your organization will just get to a point called the “Growth or Development Peak” and the worst fact about this is that, it will get to that stage very early meanwhile other companies around you are growing steadily with the speed of light leaving you stranded and in deep thoughts as to how they are making headway.
In conclusion, talent mobility is one of the best practices any company can incorporate into their activities as it is sure to give them very good results in terms of growth and overall development of such a company and its workers. This practice has some challenges as having been explained, but if you put in the hard work and determination, creating a company that has a top talent pool of employees can help put your organization above the rest.
