How companies should think about mobility post-pandemic

When the return to work­places begins, solv­ing the inter­nal mobil­i­ty puz­zle will become ever­more impor­tant. As com­pa­nies look to down­size their work­force, or adapt oper­a­tions post-coro­n­avirus, shift­ing pri­or­i­ties fast with­in a ful­ly flex­i­ble work­force will become key.

Accord­ing to Aon’s Future of Work sur­vey in Decem­ber 2020, a third (34 per cent) of those ques­tioned said “max­imis­ing work­force agili­ty and resilience to address future dis­rup­tions or risks” was extreme­ly impor­tant.

But with employ­ees for­go­ing pay ris­es and pro­mo­tions dur­ing the past 12 months or work­ing from home amid uncer­tain­ty over whether their job will even exist in the “new nor­mal”, how can com­pa­nies retain, repur­pose or reskill staff, espe­cial­ly when many are recon­sid­er­ing their career goals?

Dan­ny Harmer, Avi­va’s chief peo­ple offi­cer, believes a cul­ture of inter­nal mobil­i­ty takes time and invest­ment. The com­pa­ny adver­tis­es jobs to its own peo­ple, with around 30 per cent of vacan­cies filled by exist­ing staff. It also offers a chance to exper­i­ment with new roles via a Tap Into Tal­ent pro­gramme that allows peo­ple to spend up to 12 weeks in a dif­fer­ent role so they can learn about the broad­er busi­ness, devel­op new skills and work­ing with dif­fer­ent peo­ple, while meet­ing a tem­po­rary busi­ness need.

“We’ve always cham­pi­oned our inter­nal tal­ent,” she says. “Through­out the pan­dem­ic, we’ve con­tin­ued to invest in our peo­ple’s learn­ing and devel­op­ment. We recent­ly offered a day-long intro­duc­tion to cod­ing work­shop. Near­ly 200 col­leagues attend­ed, the major­i­ty with no pri­or cod­ing expe­ri­ence.” 

Some two thirds of Avi­va’s 540 UK appren­tices are exist­ing col­leagues who have tak­en up the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue or deep­en pro­fes­sion­al skills asso­ci­at­ed with a cur­rent role or devel­op their learn­ing due to a more senior move, with 20 per cent of con­tract­ed hours spent learn­ing with no reduc­tion in salary. A sec­ond sce­nario would be to keep work­ing at the com­pa­ny, but in a dif­fer­ent role in a dif­fer­ent busi­ness area. 

Role of technology in internal mobility paths

Kealey Chap­man, human resources busi­ness direc­tor at Ora­cle, believes upskilling and reskilling will need to be “com­plete­ly reimag­ined”. She explains: “Time at home and away from the office meant time to rethink your path and your pri­or­i­ties. While pri­ori­tis­ing per­son­al­i­sa­tion, flex­i­bil­i­ty, on-demand access and growth oppor­tu­ni­ties is a strong start to a pos­i­tive employ­ee expe­ri­ence, it is not one size fits all. Every coun­try, indus­try, organ­i­sa­tion and team will have new employ­ee expec­ta­tions and demands, and it will be up to HR lead­ers to help reimag­ine them.” 

In the years ahead, changes to employ­ee roles will increas­ing­ly be iden­ti­fied through arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, says Chap­man, adding: “Employ­ers can find skillsets to sup­port this with­in their exist­ing work­force, but it’s often dif­fi­cult for employ­ees to accu­rate­ly pin­point and describe spe­cif­ic skills. 

“Tech­nolo­gies like adap­tive arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and dig­i­tal assis­tants can help employ­ees iden­ti­fy, grow and describe their skills, and align them to what the organ­i­sa­tion needs. With this clar­i­ty and oppor­tu­ni­ty, employ­ees can use HR plat­forms to quick­ly match to new oppor­tu­ni­ties, ulti­mate­ly fos­ter­ing career advance­ment at a time when that might seem more dif­fi­cult than ever.” 

Siemens is one com­pa­ny already embrac­ing such a future. It has worked with Aon to design assess­ments look­ing at voca­tion­al inter­ests and abil­i­ties, atti­tudes, learn­ing styles, cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, as well as an indi­ca­tor of “will­ing­ness to change”. 

A com­plex match­ing algo­rithm then pro­duces a report high­light­ing the top three best match­es between employ­ees’ own inter­ests and those iden­ti­fied as a future skill for Siemens. From there, employ­ees may apply to join one of 30 reskilling routes for cours­es, train­ing and qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

John McLaugh­lin, chief com­mer­cial offi­cer of Aon’s human cap­i­tal busi­ness in Europe, Mid­dle East and Africa, says: “Siemens’ activ­i­ty is an exam­ple of how employ­ees are giv­en access to tools to make informed choic­es about their career paths; it’s not employ­er-imposed learn­ing, devel­op­ment and train­ing. Their peo­ple are giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn how they can con­tribute to the future suc­cess of the organ­i­sa­tion.”

Shift in employee perks

The pan­dem­ic has also brought about dif­fer­ent ways to keep employ­ees hap­py. Lisa Pan­tel­li, of Sim­ply Com­mu­ni­cate, a com­mu­ni­ty for HR and inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­fes­sion­als, sug­gests “tokenis­tic perks will not only be irrel­e­vant, but also phys­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble”. 

Instead, learn­ing and recog­ni­tion will lead the way, with Pan­tel­li giv­ing the exam­ple of Microsoft­’s new Viva dig­i­tal employ­ee expe­ri­ence plat­form, which can feed in learn­ing cours­es, direct to the employ­ee, from the likes of LinkedIn Learn­ing and Cours­era. 

She explains: “Rather than a well-stocked office kitchen, peo­ple would much rather be able to have their voice heard through options such as a Zoom call with their CEO. As a result, busi­ness­es will need to work hard­er on the val­ue propo­si­tion they bring to indi­vid­u­als rather than the fun office-based perks. We’ve seen a shift in reward and recog­ni­tion pro­grammes over the past 12 months, not just because new ways of work­ing are demand­ing it, but also because behav­iours have changed.”

Naleena Guru­rani, chief peo­ple offi­cer at UK full-fibre broad­band provider Hyper­op­tic, has adapt­ed to this change, intro­duc­ing prac­ti­cal perks, such as an hour a day where employ­ees can take time for them­selves, plus the offer of vir­tu­al home exer­cise ses­sions to encour­age well­be­ing.

“It is impor­tant to build a work envi­ron­ment that bal­ances effi­cien­cy and per­for­mance while answer­ing the ‘what’s in it for me?’ ques­tion and cre­at­ing moments that mat­ter for us all. We have to become ‘col­leagues’ from mere employ­ees this year. In 2020, we saw peer-to-peer recog­ni­tion real­ly increase,” says Guru­rani.

How­ev­er, Pan­tel­li strikes a note of cau­tion: “The tech­nolo­gies on offer to sup­port inter­nal mobil­i­ty are fan­tas­tic, but the right sup­port needs to be in place for those who might not have access to these plat­forms, or the skills and knowl­edge to use them, to ensure they are not left behind. Be mind­ful of their lim­i­ta­tions and explore the employ­ee jour­ney with every­one in mind.”