Weathering the turnover tsunami with a talent marketplace

It’s official: the so-called “turnover tsunami” has made landfall. Its magnitude is unprecedented, with the Labor Department reporting earlier this month that for the first time ever, there are more than 10 million job openings in the United States.

Business leaders are already feeling the impact of this mass employee exodus, as a recent PwC survey illustrates: nearly 90% of executives are seeing higher turnover than normal and more than one-third are very concerned about how this spike will impact their business’s revenue growth.

Answering the Call For Change

It’s not all bad news. While we can’t go back in time and resolve some of the long-standing workplace tensions that played a role in fueling the Great Resignation, we can take action now to mitigate its impact. We can transform our cultures, we can give our people choice and agency, and we can equalize access to learning experiences and growth opportunities for all employees.

These actions are more than suggestions. They are fundamental mindset shifts that leaders will need to embrace if they want their organizations to thrive in the next chapter of work. And while enacting this level of change quickly is challenging, the pivots seen during the early days of COVID-19 prove it’s doable.

During the pandemic’s onset, next-generation technology underpinned business transformations that made operational continuity possible, even amidst unparalleled disruption. Now, digital platforms will once again play a crucial role in mitigating the Great Resignation. Talent marketplaces in particular have emerged as an essential tool, with Gartner describing their impact as, “…transformational, enabling tomorrow’s more lean, agile, and adaptive organizations.

How to Improve Employee Retention with a Talent Marketplace

While it’s clear talent marketplaces are game-changing technology, exactly how can organizations use them to address employee attrition? The platforms solve several challenges at the heart of the Great Resignation, including:

Making Internal Mobility A Reality

When employees feel ready for more responsibility or want to apply their skills in new and different ways, do you think they’re going to look within your business, or outside of it?

According to Deloitte research, more workers will likely go with the latter option, given that employees believe it is 2.5 times easier to access opportunities outside of their organization. PwC’s survey findings tell a similar tale, with executives identifying career advancement as one of the top three reasons why employees leave their businesses.

A big part of improving retention rates is demonstrating that your people are already in the best place to grow and progress their careers. But how do you do that? All too often, internal opportunities aren’t visible to employees, or they’re not given the experiential learning and hands-on support needed to take their careers to the next level.

 A talent marketplace can change all of that. Career pathing tools provide highly personalized suggestions for internal experiences and growth opportunities that will allow employees to bridge any skills gaps that are holding them back from getting where they want to be. Workers can see where they stand, understand what they need to do next, and apply for projects, gigs, and mentorships that will ensure their career goals are well within reach.

Putting Employees in the Driver’s Seat

While employees may have once spent decades with a single organization, today’s workers don’t have the same sense of loyalty. In fact, Deloitte research reveals that nearly 40% of full-time employees surveyed in April 2021 consider themselves free agents, able and willing to move onto a new opportunity at any time.

Although people might not place the same kind of value on consistency and stability as they used to, that doesn’t mean that a revolving door of new hires has to become your organization’s fate. The secret to holding onto top talent in a free agent world is giving employees more decision-making power when it comes to choosing what projects they will do and the direction their career will take.

Talent marketplaces replace traditional, linear career models that can hold your people back with dynamic career pathing that empowers them to steer their own development. From full-time roles to projects and gigs, the platform presents your employees with an array of personalized opportunities that make it easy for them to choose internal growth over external opportunities every day.

From full-time roles to projects and gigs, the platform presents your employees with an array of personalized opportunities that make it easy for them to choose internal growth over external opportunities every day.

Equalizing Access to Opportunity

It’s going to take more than competitive pay and benefits to hold onto top talent in the new world of work. On the heels of a cultural reckoning and a series of health, economic, and social crises, employees are looking to their organizations to step up and make a difference. In fact, Gartner research reveals that nearly 70% of workers would consider leaving their employer for an organization that takes a stronger stance on societal and cultural issues.

When it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion, your people expect more from your organization than reports and scorecards. They want to see actionable change now, and they’re willing to jump ship to support businesses that are leading the way and leveling the playing field.

What can you do to ensure your organization pioneers meaningful DE&I initiatives? To see profound change, you’re going to need to look inside your own workplace and reevaluate your systems and processes. All too often, latent biases make for an unequal distribution of opportunities. Some employees are presented with ample growth pathways, while colleagues who fall into under-represented groups or live far away from the company’s main hubs may continue to get overlooked.

With an AI-powered internal marketplace, you can flip this flawed approach to talent management upside down. The platform gives everyone equal access to opportunities and ensures candidates are matched to roles solely based on their skills and experiences, not on who they know or where they sit. In describing how Seagate’s platform democratizes career development, their Director of Talent Mobility and Talent Technology, Divkiran Kathuria, notes,

First and foremost, anyone using a talent marketplace will be immediately able to discover hidden talent — candidates and skills they didn’t know existed. And they’ll be able to experience how diverse, valuable, and capable these discovered candidates are.

While the Great Resignation is presenting business leaders with a new challenge, it also comes with an exciting opportunity — but only if organizations are willing to make bold moves, embrace experimentation and lean into next-generation technology to evolve their systems and practices to meet the evolving world of work.