Nowa strona 1 » How to Build a Governance Model for Your Internal Talent Marketplace

A Strategic Framework for Ensuring Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainable Success

Introduction: Why Governance Matters for Your Internal Talent Marketplace

A well-designed internal talent marketplace (ITM) offers great promise in fostering career mobility, agility, and skills development. However, without an effective governance model, the system risks becoming disjointed, underutilized, or misaligned with business objectives.

Governance is the foundation upon which your ITM will thrive. It ensures that the platform operates with integrity, fairness, and efficiency, making it a trusted and valuable resource for all employees and stakeholders.

This guide walks you through building a robust governance model for your ITM, ensuring it is sustainable, transparent, and aligned with your strategic talent goals.

Step 1: Establish Clear Governance Objectives

Before creating the governance structure itself, define what success looks like and the role governance will play in achieving these objectives.

Core Objectives of ITM Governance:

Transparency: Ensure all opportunities are visible, fair, and accessible to employees.
Consistency: Maintain uniformity in processes, criteria, and decision-making across the business.
Accountability: Hold stakeholders (managers, HR, employees) responsible for compliance and engagement.
Fairness and Inclusion: Guarantee equal access to opportunities, supporting diversity and internal mobility for all employees.
Alignment with Business Goals: Ensure the ITM is helping the organization achieve its strategic objectives.

Example:

A global technology company used governance to maintain fair distribution of opportunities across regions and departments, resulting in a more balanced talent pool.

Step 2: Define the Key Stakeholders and Their Responsibilities

A successful ITM governance model requires cross-functional collaboration and clear ownership of key tasks. Defining these responsibilities upfront ensures smooth operation and accountability.

Key Stakeholders and Their Roles:

Executive Sponsorship (CHRO/COO): Provide strategic vision, champion the ITM initiative, and ensure alignment with the organization’s long-term talent strategy.
HR Leadership: Oversee platform implementation, monitor usage metrics, and manage the overall talent mobility strategy.
Business Unit Leaders/Managers: Post opportunities, evaluate applicants, and facilitate employee movement. Ensure career paths align with business needs.
Technology and Data Teams: Maintain platform functionality, data integrity, and integration with other HR systems (e.g., HCM, learning platforms).
Legal and Compliance Teams: Review contracts, data privacy, and ensure compliance with labor laws and regulations.
Communications and Change Management: Drive adoption and usage by creating awareness and educational content for employees and managers.

Example:
At a multinational financial institution, the governance model included quarterly strategy meetings with all stakeholders to review platform effectiveness and align it with evolving business needs.

Step 3: Set Up a Clear Structure for Opportunity Management

The opportunity intake, posting, and approval process must be transparent and standardized to prevent bottlenecks and inconsistencies.

Key Processes to Include:

Opportunity Posting: Define clear criteria for managers when posting roles, gigs, and projects. Create standardized templates for posting that include required skills, project duration, and other key information.
Approval Workflow: Establish approval levels for posting opportunities. For instance, some opportunities may require business-unit leadership approval before being posted on the platform.
Opportunity Access and Visibility: Ensure that all employees have equal access to posted opportunities based on their skills and career goals. Develop processes to support visibility filters by skill sets, job families, locations, and career levels.
Matching and Selection Process: Set standards for matching candidates to opportunities, leveraging AI-driven matching tools or manual intervention based on role criticality.

Tip:
For scalability, automate the opportunity intake process as much as possible, while keeping managers accountable for timely approvals.

Step 4: Implement Rules for Skills Tagging and Data Quality

Accurate skills tagging is at the heart of an effective talent marketplace. If roles and employees are not properly tagged with the right skills, the matching engine will fail to deliver relevant opportunities.

Best Practices for Skills Tagging:

Consistency: Create a standardized skills taxonomy and tag all roles and employee profiles with skills, competencies, and career aspirations.
Ownership: Assign ownership of skills tagging to both employees and managers. Employees self-tag their skills, while managers validate and adjust based on performance reviews and job needs.
Regular Audits: Conduct periodic audits of the skills database to ensure its accuracy and relevance. Use technology tools to streamline this process.
Update Frequency: Implement policies for employees to update their skills profiles regularly (e.g., after completing a project or taking a course).

Example:
A global consulting firm embedded skills validation as part of their performance reviews. Managers updated employee profiles after every project, ensuring the platform reflected up-to-date competencies.

Step 5: Create Governance for Mobility, Tracking, and Reporting

To ensure the talent marketplace is performing as intended, it’s important to establish clear policies for tracking mobility, monitoring success, and providing feedback.

Key Components of Mobility Governance:

Tracking Mobility: Develop workflows to track employee mobility, including role changes, gig participation, and project assignments. This helps in understanding how talent is moving and if opportunities are equitably distributed.
Success Metrics: Define KPIs for mobility, such as fill rates, time-to-match, retention post-move, and employee satisfaction with the process.
Feedback Loops: Implement mechanisms for feedback, both from employees and managers, to improve the matching process and platform usability.

Example:
A large retailer introduced quarterly reports to track internal promotions, secondments, and gig completion rates, which were reviewed by the leadership team for strategic insights.

Step 6: Manage Compliance and Data Privacy

When managing internal talent mobility, particularly with sensitive employee data, data privacy and compliance become non-negotiable.

Key Considerations:

Data Privacy Regulations: Ensure compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and other relevant data privacy regulations. Get employees' consent for using their data for mobility purposes.
Labor Laws and Contracts: Ensure that all moves (whether lateral or vertical) are compliant with labor laws and individual employment contracts.
Transparency: Make sure employees know how their data will be used in the talent marketplace and who will have access to it.

Tip:
Work with the legal team early to build a governance framework that ensures compliance with both global and local employment laws, as internal mobility may vary across geographies.

Step 7: Ensure Continuous Feedback and Iteration

Governance is not a one-time effort. It must evolve as the organization, technology, and talent needs change. Establish a system for continuous improvement and feedback from users.

Feedback Mechanisms:

Employee Feedback: Survey employees after every mobility event (gig, promotion, transfer) to gather insights on the platform’s effectiveness and user experience.
Manager Feedback: Regularly check in with managers to understand challenges they face with posting or selecting candidates.
Technology Improvements: Use data from the platform to continually improve the matching algorithm, user interface, and overall experience.

Example:
A tech company launched an internal survey every 6 months to track platform engagement, user satisfaction, and feature requests, using this data to prioritize future updates.

Step 8: Establish Performance Metrics and Success Indicators

To keep governance effective and demonstrate value, track the key metrics that show the internal talent marketplace is fulfilling its purpose.

Critical Success Metrics:

Internal Mobility Rate: The percentage of roles filled by internal candidates versus external hires.
Time-to-Match: How long it takes to match employees to the right opportunity.
Employee Engagement: Participation rates in the platform, including how often employees engage with opportunities, apply, and complete mobility events.
Talent Retention: Measure the impact of internal mobility on employee retention, particularly for high-potential employees.
Diversity Metrics: Track whether the marketplace is providing equal access to opportunities across gender, race, location, etc.

Conclusion: Building a Sustainable, Scalable ITM Governance Model

Establishing a governance model for your internal talent marketplace is not just about creating policies and processes—it’s about instilling a culture of trust, transparency, and equitable opportunity. A strong governance framework ensures that the platform remains aligned with business goals, operates fairly, and grows in a sustainable way.

For HR leaders, this is an ongoing effort, requiring commitment from the top down, clear communication across the business, and a focus on continuous improvement. With the right governance, an internal talent marketplace can become a powerful tool for talent development, retention, and organizational agility.