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Employees are arguably the most important factor of an organization’s ability to compete in this present moment but also in the long term. An organization’s talent drives innovation and creates value. Turnover can cause drastic effects throughout an organization, such as the loss of company knowledge, which alone can pile on the costs from recruiting and training.
According to the Work Institute, loss of knowledge from employee turnover can cost anywhere from 33% to 200%, depending on the level of seniority and role complexity. This type of knowledge comes from time spent with a company and can require efficient training to overcome. Talent is invaluable in any organization and preventing involuntary turnover is one factor that needs to be considered in a talent strategy.
Additionally, organizations need to be more agile than ever before to deal with increased competition and global market forces. For example, organizations had to rapidly adjust to new working conditions when the pandemic impacted businesses all over the world. Many businesses failed to adapt and unfortunately went out of business or had to lay off hundreds or thousands of employees. Similarly, to remain competitive organizations must be on the forefront of technology disruption and in turn management must understand how their existing workforce will fill new roles or support these changes.
HR teams have been experimenting with other ways to reduce layoffs and improve organization agility. Instead of layoffs, some organizations utilize rapid workforce redeployment. Not only can rapid workforce redeployment help reduce layoffs, but it can also help organizations be more agile in response to potential threat and changing needs.
What Is Rapid Workforce Redeployment?
Workforce redeployment has been used by organizations for some time. Typically, this entails transferring a current employee to a new role in the organization. The employee with the right skill set, desire, potential, and experience would migrate and perform the new role. Workforce redeployment cuts down the costs associated with recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and can improve employee retention by providing transparency and a path within the organization that employees signed up for.
Rapid workforce redeployment takes conventional strategies to the next level. This method involves rapidly moving talent into areas where it is needed most. If one area of the business is impacted, employees can be moved into growth areas. For example, innovation is a rapidly growing area of business for many companies. Organizations can move talented employees into roles where they can actively contribute to new business growth.
Benefits of Rapid Workforce Redeployment
The benefits of rapid workforce redeployment are numerous. Employers can help team members uncover hidden skills and talents as well as develop skills. SHRM’s Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement: The Doors of Opportunity are Open, showed that one of the top five factors that lead to job satisfaction are opportunities to use their skills and abilities at work. Employees will likely have higher morale and engagement, as they can apply their skill sets and areas of expertise to new functions and support continued organizational growth. These employees will be much easier to retain.
Projects that do not have the proper talent can utilize in-house talent and resources in order to succeed. For example, claims processors, a role that was impacted by technological innovation, can move employees into other areas of the business such as customer support. Instead of wasting precious time and resources on finding external talent, organizations can simply move their existing internal talent to different job roles where their skills are aligned and can be applied.
Additionally, rapid workforce redeployment can facilitate collaboration between departments to break down information silos. According to a study by Planview, information and communication silos cost an average employee 7 hours a week. By breaking down information silos departments are enabled to share information more easily and teams that would have never worked together can redeploy talent to uncover ways that they can drive innovation and solve problems.
With all of these clear benefits, why doesn’t every company utilize rapid workforce redeployment? Many organizations may not have the necessary tools and resources to create a rapid workforce redeployment strategy. Thankfully, there are software solutions that can help an organizations to develop and implement rapid workforce redeployment.
How Software Can Support A Rapid Workforce Redeployment Strategy
HR teams and managers across an organization have evolving needs for talent in various areas of their businesses. A manager who has a specific need in a project may not know who to go to in an organization with tens of thousands of employees. One manager can only know so many employees’ abilities and self-proclaimed skills can be extremely misleading. This unintentional lack of knowledge creates a gap that can be filled by a software-powered solution.
Human resources and other departments of the organization need to be on the same page in terms of employee skills and competencies. Various projects and areas of growth will require different skills competencies, proficiency levels and overall capabilities. The key team members need to be able to properly communicate the necessary talent profile that is needed to fill their gaps. This task is very challenging for an HR team without the right data. Keeping track of all of that information would be extremely difficult and confusing if managed in spreadsheets or if there is a solution in placed without verified data.
A talent management platform can help HR teams identify the right employees to fill critical roles and offer future opportunities within their company. Competency-based software can help organizations create skill benchmarks for various roles and can help ensure that employee competencies are developed, so they are ready for a new role or project. Overall, this software can help facilitate rapid workforce deployment.
Deploying a successful rapid workforce redeployment strategy can help ensure that your organization remains agile in the face of adversity and can reduce both voluntary and involuntary turnover. By adopting the right strategy, you can make the most of your company’s most precious resource – your people.