Confronting Fairness in Internal Hiring May Be Key to Retaining Talent

The great resignation has hit many employers hard, and labor shortages continue to make finding enough hires to fill open positions difficult. However, a new survey may help employers discover how they can retain their existing staff. A significant question in many employers’ minds has been why employees have applied outside of their current organizations without first considering internal openings. But a new survey of job candidates may have answered that question finding that the biggest reason is a belief among employees that their employer’s internal hiring process is unfair.

Among a survey of 3,000 job candidates in June of last year, only one-third of those who had looked for a job within the last year had first looked within their organization for opportunities. Similarly, a survey from the third quarter of 2021 found that only a paltry 18% of employees surveyed reported working in a high fairness environment. This is defined as an environment in which employees perceive themselves as being treated fairly by their organization and managers.

Solving this issue could be the key to making it through the labor shortage that industries are suffering from. By finding those with hidden skills and encouraging internal mobility, talent can be retained, and gaps that were created during the Great Resignation can be filled. In fact, data has shown that companies with a high rate of internal mobility have close to twice the average employee tenure as those with a low rate.

There are a few different ways that employers can help encourage internal mobility. The first is to ensure that employees are aware of internal job openings. Employers may consider using technology to allow employees to share their interests, visualize potential career paths, and provide notifications when an opportunity they are interested in arises.

Another means to encourage employees to pursue internal opportunities is to provide employees with one-on-one coaching to connect employees with opportunities that match with their aspirations. Once employees do wish to pursue a new role, most report that their managers fail to facilitate the process of applying to an internal position. In order to assist, HR leaders should equip managers to help share opportunities with their teams and how their skills could transfer to new roles. Employers may even consider allowing employees to bypass their managers to apply for a new role to protect them from uncomfortable situations until they know whether or not they are a good fit for a position.

By instituting changes like these, employers may be able to shift employees’ perceptions of internal hiring and retain existing talent. As demand for talent continues to grow, this could play a critical role in weathering the storm through the rest of 2022.

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