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When HR Leader’s editor Shandel McAuliffe spoke with LHH’s James Mcilvena (managing director for Australia and New Zealand) for a recent webcast: Career and talent mobility simplified in partnership with LHH, an attendee asked about measuring the productivity of talent mobility endeavours.
Mr Mcilvena sat down with The HR Leader for a follow-up podcast in partnership with LHH: Insights into how to measure talent mobility to tackle that productivity query.
Mr Mcilvena summed up his approach to measuring mobility when he stated: “The start point is, start measuring something.”
He highlighted how important having quantitative insight is. He said: “Measure the outcomes and then you’ve actually got some firm data to talk to when you think about what plan is right for your organisation. And data is king when it comes to going and asking for everything from leadership support to investment.”
For those looking for a starting point in understanding how they’re going with staff progression, Mr Mcilvena provided a rough number to benchmark against. For internal hiring, Mc Mcilvena said that 30 per cent is a good number to keep in mind.
“If your internal hiring percentage is lower than 30 per cent, then it’s probably something that you need to take a look at because that’s probably well below par when it comes to the circulation and creation of opportunities for your existing employees. So aim for 30 per cent, but that’s the most simplistic measure.”
Diving into measuring how to then prove the success of an internal move, Mr Mcilvena used a sales position as an example: “Specific performance metrics are always better than those intangible things. Yes, performance metrics should be linked to all the KPIs for a role, but even better if they can be specific measurements. So, in a sales role for example, it’s really simple, it’s productivity and did the people hit their targets and what percentage? And how [are] internal moves faring against external hires when it comes to hitting or exceeding sales targets?”
He continued: “But most roles, not just sales, have a core metric that’s important to them. So monitoring those core metrics will give you an idea. If you want to test whether your internal hires are effective and you want to test some of the things that you and I covered in the webinar, which is: does that retention of institutional knowledge and the investment in actually allowing people to develop skillsets with the organisation in new roles pay off?”
The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full podcast conversation with James Mcilvena, click below:
Shandel McAuliffe
Shandel has recently returned to Australia after working in the UK for eight years. Shandel's experience in the UK included over three years at the CIPD in their marketing, marcomms and events teams, followed by two plus years with The Adecco Group UK&I in marketing, PR, internal comms and project management. Cementing Shandel's experience in the HR industry, she was the head of content for Cezanne HR, a full-lifecycle HR software solution, for the two years prior to her return to Australia.
Shandel has previous experience as a copy writer, proofreader and copy editor, and a keen interest in HR, leadership and psychology. She's excited to be at the helm of HR Leader as its editor, bringing new and innovative ideas to the publication's audience, drawing on her time overseas and learning from experts closer to home in Australia.
