If your employees perceive there's no opportunity for career growth in your organization, they'll go elsewhere. And in today's talent market, that's easy to do. As of last month, there were between 6.8-7.2 million unfilled jobs across the economy. People are staying shorter times in jobs and shorter times in companies. Employees want development not just for the job they are in today, but also they want development for future career possibilities. The best CFO I have ever worked for was Tim Scott. He was the CFO of ICI London at the time I was there, and I was assigned to building people capability in the finance function. The most important thing we did for the finance function was to have a very visible talent-mobility and review strategy for every region of the world, for every line of business.
The communication plan was made visible to everyone, as was how we reviewed talent, how to indicate career interests, how to put together a career plan, by work level in the organization from the CFO roles to the beginning-level analysts. We published our results quarterly to everyone in the function, we gave a view to open roles and to where we would be adding people due to regional expansion and growth. If you were interested in growing your career you could go to our internal site called e-bility, which was about growing your skills and capabilities. There you could see the competencies, skills, and capabilities needed for every role in the function so it was clear what you needed to develop as you grew your career. In short, everything about our strategy and tools was visible and actionable, making it a source of development and retention.
When you are clarifying your talent mobility strategy it is helpful to have a working definition that states what you are doing or want to do.