Mailroom to the Boardroom: Internal Mobility in 2021

Start in the mailroom in the basement. Work your way up, floor by floor. And then one day, you eventually find yourself in the corner office on the top floor, ruling the roost.

 

^ That’s what internal mobility used to look like. And while the fundamentals look a bit different, a lot of internal career planning in recent years has followed a similar rigid process: biannual reviews, L3->L4->L5, and so on.

 

One of the really powerful conversations we had at the RAC, TA + Talent Management: The Evolution of Talent Marketplace hit on how this old paradigm is getting flipped on its head. People are moving up and across organizations at increasing speed, all being pushed by a few key changes:

 

1. Demographic:  Gen Z  and millennials (now comprising a majority of the workforce) prioritize fast and  consistent career and personal growth at work – the old “sit and wait” doesn’t cut it.

2. Technology: if democratized learning tools are expanding up-skilling and new AI tools are making it possible to identify people ready for the next step (or ready for a change)… then why sit around and wait?

3. Pandemic: the pandemic flipped so many plans – those waited-for-2-years promotions had to be put on hold… or had to be delivered ahead of schedule, all to help organizations adapt to the rapidly changing landscape.

And if you read  our newsletter last week on flexibility and the future of work – you may notice some serious crossover. 

 

Demographic trends, organizations’ rapidly changing needs for skills, the impact of technology, and even the disruption of the pandemic: these have been clarifying forces driving organizations behind a clear common goal: 

 

Get people to the right job faster. (and okay, I’m a little biased because at my Wade & Wendy day job, our entire mission is getting people to the right work as quickly as possible, but I’ve been blown away at how much this sums up TA and talent management work today).

 

Check out the incredible conversation with  Kevin Grossman  (President, Talent Board),  Adrianne Pettiford  (Head of Client Insights and Analytics, pymetrics),  Tony Shaffner  (VP, Head of Talent Acquisition, AllianceBernstein), and  Wagner Denuzzo  (Head of Capabilities for Future of Work, Prudential Financial). 

 

Check out the full conversation here.

This was excerpted from the 2-04-2021 RAC Newsletter. Sign Up for the Newsletter here.