Why A Talent Marketplace Could Be The Key To Keeping Your Talent Engaged

With a challenging economy and a tight talent market, it goes without saying that Talent Acquisition (TA) teams have their work cut out for them. HR and TA leaders are facing a whole host of challenges. One challenge in particular that is affecting countless businesses is the issue of keeping existing talent engaged.

When budgets are tight and raises or bonuses aren’t necessarily viable options, business leaders must get creative and find other ways to keep their talent engaged. One tactic many leaders are exploring is internal mobility: offering projects, gigs, learning opportunities and new roles to existing employees.

With the right AI-driven tools in your tech stack, the task of deploying internal mobility can be made much simpler. In this article, we’ll share why a Talent Marketplace could be the missing link to keeping your employees highly engaged, even in a huge organization.

Workers want to learn new skills and develop

Our Talent Index (Seventh Edition) research revealed that 34% of workers are very eager to learn new skills at their current workplace, and another 27% said they are already participating in some kind of learning and development program. An additional 21% are considering learning new skills while in their current role.

Today’s talent is keen to upskill and reskill. Our research also reports that 51% of workers are at least thinking about leaving their job within the next 12 months. And 12% of that group said their reason for considering leaving is because of the lack of career growth opportunities.

So employees want to learn new skills, but it’s not always easy to see who wants to learn what and who is best suited for each learning and development opportunity. If employers want to truly engage their talent, they must find a solution to this problem. A good place to start is by investing in technology that will allow you to view the skills your employees already have, and make smart, personalized recommendations for internal learning and development opportunities.

A Talent Marketplace gives employers a holistic view of the skills they have internally, and reveals skills gaps that are left unfilled. With that knowledge, leaders can get a clearer picture of who the best candidates would be to participate in learning and development programs. You may not even realize it, but your business likely has several people who could fill critical skills gaps with just a little bit of training.

And from the employee perspective, a Talent Marketplace gives them a clear view of the development opportunities that are available to them. While many organizations have upskilling and reskilling programs, sometimes they are hard to find or are simply not communicated well internally.

A Talent Marketplace solves that problem. It’s a central place where employees can go to find on-the-job training opportunities, gigs to take on, ideal learning programs, suitable mentors, or full-time internal roles to apply for. A Talent Marketplace provides personalized employee experiences by displaying recommended opportunities based on the skills each individual employee already has and their career goals.

When workers feel like they have room to grow and advance in their careers, they are more likely to stay engaged and motivated.

Disengaged employees might simply need a new internal opportunity

Internal mobility isn’t new, but in today’s tough economic conditions, some companies are just now realizing how many benefits there are to talent mobility – some of which directly impact the bottom line.

By pursuing internal candidates, recruiters can be much more efficient and fill roles quicker by avoiding the lengthy external recruiting and onboarding processes. And with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, external candidates are more likely to demand much higher salaries when changing companies compared to internal candidates who are looking for a new opportunity with their current employer.

When your talent is continually upskilling and reskilling, they become excellent candidates (who already understand your business) to fill the critical skills gaps within your organization. An AI-driven Talent Marketplace can do the heavy lifting – automating a lot of the hard work and manual tasks at scale. The AI may come up with personalized recommendations that a recruiter or hiring manager might have unintentionally overlooked, simply because the technology can more easily infer what opportunities each individual would be a good fit for.

We already discussed how over half (51%) of today’s workers are at least considering leaving their jobs in the next 12 months. For many of these disengaged employees, a new role in another department or on a different team might just be enough to re-engage them and encourage them to stay.

Workforce agility allows the business to better handle the changing economic conditions

HR and TA teams are facing so many challenges, including bouncing back from the “Great Resignation”. Despite the uncertain economy, over half of the workforce is still considering quitting their jobs this year. This is where workforce agility changes the game.

When businesses achieve talent agility, they are able to adapt to changes in the market – much more quickly than the competition. And having a truly agile workforce is all about empowering employees: empowering leaders to make quick, well-informed decisions to adapt to changing market conditions, and empowering employees to take ownership of their development and their career path.

With a Talent Marketplace, employers can give leaders and team members the ability to take ownership and make better, more efficient decisions around talent. This technology allows managers to redeploy talent with the right skills to short-term projects or more valuable roles, as the data is organized centrally and AI is ‘highlighting’ the ideal people for each opportunity more quickly and effectively than a human recruiter.

Building an agile workforce also tends to boost employee engagement. When employees are empowered to take charge of their own training, development and career growth opportunities, they are generally happier, more productive and motivated, and they usually stay with the organization longer.

Talent engagement isn’t always easy, but putting these programs in place has benefits that are multifold: workers are more productive and motivated, they often stay with the organization longer, and they get to learn new skills and enjoy the career opportunities they desire. And the business benefits from saving time and money – a true win-win. All of these talent engagement strategies can be powered by an intelligent Talent Marketplace.

Learn more about how you can keep your talent engaged with Beamery Grow, an AI-driven Talent Marketplace.