While your organisation may already be having an Internal Job Placement (IJP) process, it is very likely that it’s not robust, effective and possibly it does not add real value to the business as well as people. Of course, it might have helped you close a couple of positions through internal referrals, and it might have helped some of your employees shift roles, move to other locations, still there may be ample opportunity for improvement. If you don’t believe us – do a sampling from amongst your employees. Ask them if they feel that IJP process is actually adding value.
When we requested insights from some business leaders on best people practices that can impact employee engagement and employee retention – we received an extremely valuable insight on the need and relevance of IJP from Manoj Soni, President – Supply Chain, Jubilant Life Sciences Limited. Manoj says – ” A robust Internal Job Placement ( IJP ) is a vital best practice which can create opportunity for any employee .. to work cross functionally” & it also enables them “look at various career opportunities”. It can also help an organization develop and build a “versatile work force”.
“The IJP implementation should be done across the levels covering employees across levels: Junior, Middle, Senior & top management / leadership. However, managing the same for top management and leadership executives also requires a robust succession planning process.”
In fact, if you look at the case – an IJP – Internal Job Placement , or Internal Job Posting as it’s referred to in some organizations is more of a “Job Posting” exercise, where job positions are posted on the company’s intranet or on notice boards to invite interest and application from existing employees for the concerned position. The prime thought behind the IJP is to allow an opportunity for existing talent to make a switch to other interesting roles, higher roles within the organization. The big problem with this mindset and process execution is that – most executives are blinded by the “existing” and are not ready to evaluate internal candidates suitably for higher roles and opportunities. They are also not too keen to experiment, and allow an employee an opportunity to shift functions and get cross functional exposure.
Getting blinded by the “present” and thereby not allowing appropriate opportunities to employees through the IJP also leads to a high degree of dissatisfaction triggering a desire to explore better opportunities outside the organization.
How to make IJP relevant and robust ?
We can easily call any process robust if the participating team is able to execute it well, and they are able to leverage the process to deliver the requisite value to the business. For the IJP process, it would help if there is a strong linkage and alignment between the IJP process, the talent management and related processes – career planning, development planning, and bench / succession planning.
Of course it’s not as easy as it sounds, considering that organizations that are reasonably high on organizational maturity are still not able to appropriately implement and leverage the above mentioned processes and practices. The organization, the leadership , the HR, and the employees need be clear on how the above processes links up, what’s the value of the process for the employees, and what’s the value of the process for the business.