Employees who want to advance are the ones who contribute the most to company growth. However, when employers fail to help their employees learn and develop professionally, they stagnate and suffer from the horrible side effects of talent hoarding.

A whopping 50% of managers admit to talent hoarding, or keeping employees in their current roles. This practice not only prevents employees from achieving their full potential, but also creates major problems for organizations, such as high turnover and disengagement. Talent hoarding is a growing issue acting as a major hurdle for a lot of employers who need to create a mobile workforce.

Talent hoarding occurs when companies keep the best employees in their current roles and don’t provide them with any advancement opportunities or career development. How can companies solve this problem?

See: How to Attract the Best Talent and Avoid Turnover?

Seeking solution to this problem much evident in the workplace, RolePoint, a complete social recruiting suite, has compiled an Infographic that explains why talent mobility is necessary for every organization to develop their employees into the best they can be.

Here are some highlights:

• 50% of managers admit to talent hoarding, or keeping the best employees in their current roles
• 85% of organizations say they fail to demonstrate key behaviors linked to effective talent mobility
• Retention suffers: 45% of employees who changed companies in 2014 and 2015 said they left because they didn’t have advancement opportunities
• 55% of employees rate opportunities to use their skills and abilities at work as a “very important” contributor to their job satisfaction
• 90% of HR professionals say an employee recognition program improved engagement

While developing a talent mobility program is the most appropriate measure to overcome hoarding, companies aren’t taking the right steps. 24% organisations stated lack of understanding about talent mobility and how it can be leveraged. 40% organisations claim they hardly or never provide opportunities for career planning and development, and 85% claimed to have failed to demonstrate key behaviours linked to effective talent mobility.

How Can Companies Stop Talent Hoarding?

Talent hoarding can be combated by a strong talent mobility program wherein employees can set their own career goals and employers can help them achieve their goals by offering them career advancement opportunities. Employers should be acting upon:

• Primarily recognise success of employees: According to the findings, 90% HR professionals say that an effective employee recognition program improved engagement levels among the workforce.
• Set realistic achievable goals: According to the study, 70% of the participants who sent weekly updates to their friends reported successful goal achievement, as in comparison to the 35% who never made extra efforts to write down their goals.
• Develop training programs: Career advancement opportunity is one of the top driving forces for employee retention. Employers should encourage this growing need among employees to stay abreast of industry knowledge and skills by offering them adequate training and learning programs.

When employers invest in their staff instead of holding them back, the company is bound to grow. Retention improves, and employees are happier, more engaged, and far more productive.

Author credit: Heather R. Huhman

Read also: Best Practices for Improving Employee Job Satisfaction Quickly