Implementing a Talent Marketplace
An Introduction for Talent and HR Professionals
Many leading organizations are either contemplating, planning, implementing, or maintaining a Talent Marketplace (TM). If your organization doesn’t have a Talent Marketplace on its roadmap, it’s time to get it on the 2024 plan.
For those who haven’t heard the buzz, a Talent Marketplace is an internal platform that matches employees' skills and career aspirations with short-term, project-based, or full-time opportunities within the organization. This allows for dynamic career paths, more effective role-based learning, and the maximizing of skills within the organization. In addition, Talent Marketplaces can provide a rich set of skills data for business leaders, HR, and workforce planning professionals.
Talent Marketplaces are becoming mainstream thanks to the confluence of three major trends. First is the need to retain critical talent and facilitate internal mobility. Second, is the emergence of AI enabled skills-matching capabilities for employees with gigs and open positions. Third, is the vibrant vendor landscape with niche players like Gloat, Degreed, Beamery, and Eightfold pushing talent marketplace capabilities, and mainstays like Workday, Oracle, and SAP integrating these features into recent releases.
In this article, I’ll introduce the three pillars and eight steps to implementing a Talent Marketplace. Our full guide with details on three pillars and eight steps will be available soon. If you would like to receive a copy, contact us.
The Three Pillars
The three pillars to a successful Talent Marketplace deployment are job architecture, enabling technologies, and culture change. Job architecture provides the framework of leadership competencies and functional skills needed in your organization. Your enabling technology will host your job architecture and enable skills-based matching of jobs and gigs to your employees. Finally, culture change is required to bring leaders, managers, and HR along together in facilitating career mobility as a standard way of operating. Simply put, while many organizations think of purchasing a tech solution to enable a talent marketplace, that tech solution is only one-third of the equation. More about what's involved in securing the three pillars and avoiding roadblocks is included in Talent Domo’s detailed guide.
The Eight Steps
Naturally, with any major initiative, a detailed project plan is key. I like to break out the plan into eight key steps or phases. These key steps are:
Define objectives and guilding principles
Gain stakeholder support
Select a tech platform
Update job architecture
Pilot the program
Train employees, managers, and HR
Launch
Review and recalibrate
1. Define Objectives and Guiding Principles.
Before implementing a Talent Marketplace, define what you want to achieve and the guiding principles that will lead you there. Objectives may include increasing internal mobility and guiding principles may include statements like “Leaders are career coaches” or “Internal talent first.” These objectives and principles will guide the design and function of your Talent Marketplace and inform your culture change program. This is also the stage to build a project plan with key milestones.
2. Gain Stakeholder Support.
A Talent Marketplace with scant participation will not be successful, so it's crucial to get buy-in from all key stakeholders. Communicate the benefits and how it aligns with the organization's strategy and culture. See the detailed guide for common points of resistance and how we recommend overcoming them.
3. Select a Technology Platform.
There are many talent-focused platforms like Gloat, Degreed, and Eightfold offering Talent Marketplace solutions. There are many similarities, but some are better in specific areas (e.g., learning or recruiting). If your organization relies on Workday, Oracle, or SAP, each of these major providers has a Talent Marketplace type solution as well. Choose a platform that fits the biggest gaps in your HR ecosystem and provides an approach to a skills taxonomy that will serve you well for several years. The decision can be harrowing, so do your homework. In our guide, we’ll cover other considerations for when to look for one system versus a constellation of applications to power your marketplace and related features.
4. Update Job Architecture.
It's essential to have a solid job architecture framework to enable your talent marketplace. This may mean having a new, simpler approach to job profiles. It may also include a hierarchy of leadership competencies. This framework will identify the key capabilities employees need in various roles. A skills and competency framework will help employees self-assess against their skills, helping them understand their strengths and learning goals to prep for their next gig or job. Similarly, it will guide the AI matching algorithm used by the Talent Marketplace to suggest suitable opportunities for each employee.
5. Pilot the Program.
Because Talent Marketplaces and their related capabilities are so new, and nearly every organization is going to have a different mix of industry, jobs, tech platforms, and culture, it’s important to pilot the program before rolling it out broadly. The pilot can range from focus groups with 10-20 employees, to running a program for a division of 500 people. This will depend on your organization. In all cases, it’s important to gather feedback to inform your training and adoption programs.
6. Train employees, managers, and HR.
Provide training and support to employees and managers on how to use the Talent Marketplace. This could involve webinars, how-to guides, and dedicated support personnel. This is also where the investment in the third pillar of culture change really comes to life.
7. Launch.
A soft launch is nearly always the right approach to be followed by a celebratory launch on the official go live date. Make the launch date a major milestone to drive the program by.
8. Review and recalibrate.
As work, technology, the economy, and employee attitudes about their careers evolve, it’s essential to review and recalibrate after the launch. Plan to recalibrate at 90-180 days, and again after the one-year mark. Think agile. This will be an evolving program.
This was a simple introduction to developing a talent marketplace. If you are considering one, I’d love to share additional insights. Reach out to receive our detailed guide or to connect on this or related talent topics.
