5 Best Practices for Introducing an Internal Talent Marketplace
The market for internal talent marketplaces is evolving fast, and the speed at which things are changing can make the process of selecting and implementing a marketplace for your organization seem daunting.
But, experts say, the effort is well worth it to unlock the power of this potentially game-changing technology.
“It's hard to implement these things successfully, but if they can be, there’s a big payout,” said Ben Zweig, CEO of Revelio Labs, creator of a universal HR database.
Let’s look at five best practices for getting an internal marketplace up and running successfully.
1. Decide if a Marketplace Is Right for You
A big part of getting started with an internal talent marketplace is deciding whether it’s right for your organization. Just because these systems are hot doesn’t mean using them is right for your workplace.
Because an internal talent marketplace is typically a good fit for an organization that plans on using it to match internal talent with projects instead of full-time jobs, Janet Clarey, principal director of HR research and advisory services at McLean & Company, said it is generally only worth implementing for companies with at least 5,000 employees. “There has to be a significant volume to make good matches,” she said.
Internal talent marketplaces also work well when the company has a set of jobs or projects that end frequently. “For example, they could work well in consulting or banking, where projects usually last a few months, and then the workers need to rematch with other projects,” said Patryk Perkowski, an incoming assistant professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at Yeshiva University’s business school. “In workplaces without such a project mix, it will be more difficult to implement, though still possible.”
Notably, some companies that have long had traditional job structures are moving toward enabling more project-based work with the help of internal talent marketplace technology.
2. Cultivate the Right Company Culture
The main premise of an internal marketplace implies that company leadership supports and encourages employees to seek new opportunities and skills within the organization. Otherwise, a problem known as “talent hoarding” — whereby managers prevent or discourage workers from pursuing new challenges outside their team — can sabotage the internal talent marketplace’s success.
That culture also needs to permeate through the organization to prevent any blockage along the way. “The big challenge in moving people around is that managers are not really incentivized to do so,” said Zweig. “Managers really do want to protect their team; they’re territorial.”
Ensuring there is no talent-hoarding happening at any level requires explicit messaging from the leadership team. Perkowski recommends clearly communicating the benefits of this system for both workers and managers, as well as providing detailed information about who can see what information within the system.
“Culture plays a huge role, especially in the uptake of these programs,” he said. “These marketplaces work better in cultures that are more open and transparent.”
Related Article: How to Intentionally Design Corporate Culture
3. Establish a Solid Taxonomy or Job Architecture
Job architecture is where the rubber hits the road when implementing an internal talent marketplace.
“Good job architecture is sort of a prerequisite to implementing an internal talent marketplace,” said Zweig. “It’s a very important thing to get right.”
Learning Opportunities
Creating a solid taxonomy requires getting a thorough understanding of the jobs, skills and activities that exist within the organization. But figuring that out can be harder than it seems. Zweig suggests collating publicly available information, such as your company’s job listings as well as the skills and activities listed on your employees’ LinkedIn profiles.
“[Internal talent marketplaces] create visibility into people’s skills,” said Clarey. “The skills you have that you don’t use in your current job are hidden. [A taxonomy] makes it so managers can find the people who have the skills to do the job.”
4. Consider the Scope of Your Launch
There is some debate about how to roll out an internal talent marketplace. Some experts recommend starting with a smaller pilot, while others see the value of launching to your whole organization at once.
Perkowski is among those who prefer to test the new system with a small number of workers. He then complements the process with a survey to get qualitative data about what can be improved. A pilot, he said, has the advantage of allowing initial implementation at a single level of the organization.
“It’s easier to implement this at the lower levels of the hierarchy,” he said. “If you’re piloting it, maybe you pilot it with lower-level employees and then get a sense of how you scale from there.”
Zweig, on the other hand, leans toward the opinion that going bigger from the outset is better, though he admits that he doesn’t feel “it’s an obvious call either way.” He sees a couple reasons for starting big: “The potential scales exponentially with the size of the organization, so there’s not a lot of upside to starting small. While starting with a pilot is a comfortable thing to do, starting bigger forces there to be buy-in from the heads of the organization, and that’s probably helpful.”
Related Article: Why Organizations Are Struggling to Realize ROI With HR Platforms
5. Continually Improve
Once you’ve completed implementation and rollout, your work is far from done. Like many of today’s digital business systems, an internal talent marketplace can be improved by refining its data and tweaking its algorithms.
“It’s not just something you can turn on and walk away from,” said Clarey. “You’re continuously tweaking to prevent bias and make matches better.”
She said organizations that get poor matches between employees and jobs or projects may want to take a closer look at their data. “Usually there’s some sort of data cleaning that needs to be done.”
The good news is, as you hone your communication, scale up your usage and fine-tune your system, your internal talent marketplace will become increasingly useful and impactful for your organization.About the Author
Katherine Gustafson is a full-time freelance writer with more than a decade of experience in creating content related to tech, business, finance, the environment, and other topics for mission-driven and innovative companies and nonprofits such as Visa, PayPal, HPE, Adobe, Skift, Khan Academy and World Wildlife Fund.
Connect with Katherine Gustafson:
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