Structural's Internal Opportunity Marketplace is built to match the "supply" of talented employees across an organization to the "demand" of short gigs, key projects, big roles, sales support, volunteering, learning, and mentoring.
Structural can connect your people to opportunity no matter where they work, be it via web application, mobile app, or even inside of Microsoft Teams.
"One of the surest ways for leaders to create better opportunities for their organizations is to create better opportunities for their people."
Structural automatically creates and maintains stunning profiles for every individual in your organization allowing people to quickly scale their internal networks and be found for new opportunities, starting on day 1.
"Our employees are now immersed in a digital world. From onboarding to maintaining connection and culture across the organization, Structural is at the core of that experience for us.”
"We always check Structural to find the right people to match to opportunities in our fluid talent model. The use is beyond what I ever expected."
Without the opportunity for growth and mobility what is to keep your top performers from heading for the door? But who has time to thoughtfully craft a talent mobility plan for every individual?
Take the guess-work (and leg-work) out of finding the right person for the right role, project, gig, etc... and connect them to the opportunities that empower their career and maximize value and capacity for your entire organization.
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts fail when individuals are siloed and unable to make meaningful connections outside of their teams. Structural makes it easy for individuals to expand their network, connect with career-defining opportunities and build community with others who share their identity.
It's increasingly important to create more spaces where people who share identity can come together and create community.
Structural can be a tool to address this."
"This opportunity-centered approach may well prove to be the most ethical and economical way to align enterprise values with enterprise value creation."
Today, more companies than ever before are offering remote and hybrid work options, which has caused the dynamic between employee and employer to change forever. In turn, gone is the expectation of a loyal employee that stays with one company for 50 years and moves up and within the organization.
According to a survey done by Bankrate, 55% of workers are planning to look for a new job.
And, according to a MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte Study with over 3,900 respondents and 18 executives, they found that "opportunity" was the best way to increase the value of the workforce. It also showed that "nearly half of all workers surveyed are prepared to leave their organization if offered a buyout or severance package" and "only 34% are happy with their organization's investment in them".
Your employees want growth, your employees want connection, and most importantly your employees want open and transparent access to these sorts of opportunities.
So how can you connect people to opportunities across the organization (and do so at scale?) Enter: the internal opportunity marketplace.
An internal opportunity marketplace, sometimes called a talent marketplace, serves as a digital platform and system where workers can find opportunities that your organization wants to promote. The marketplace will give employees a place to find new and exciting projects as well as opportunities for career development, mentorship, and networking among their peers.
Using an internal opportunity marketplace, employees are able to search and connect with opportunities that they are excited about and highly value. In turn, the organization benefits from increased participation, engagement, and motivation.
Picture in your mind Shanice: an introverted, high performing employee looking for a new career opportunity outside of her current department.
She’s heard her company is trying to launch a podcast and she happens to have audio editing experience. This is outside of her role as an IT Analyst, but it allows her to contribute to the company in new and fulfilling ways. She’s been looking to sharpen up her skills and work on projects that excite her, but she has no idea where to start.
Shanice will likely waste her time looking in the wrong spot. She turns to people on her immediate team for help, but no one is able to point her in the right direction to naturally connect with those on the podcast team.
After quite a few dead ends and enough frustration, she becomes tired of searching. She starts to doubt that the opportunity to get involved is even a possibility at her current company, yet she is still determined to pursue a new career opportunity outside of IT. Because internal mobility, in her eyes, is not an option, she begins searching for another job at a different company.
After looking for opportunities inside her own organization and finding dead ends, all those recruiters in her LinkedIn message inbox start to pique her attention. In the next few weeks she’s interviewing with multiple other companies and within months she leaves her company to try again elsewhere.
But what if the opportunity to get involved on the podcast team did exist at her former company all along?
This entire cycle could have been avoided if Shanice had access to an internal opportunity marketplace. Countless hours are searching for, applying to and interviewing for positions at brand new companies that don’t know much about the employee beyond her resume. Using an internal opportunity marketplace, the employee could have had the opportunity to easily locate and reach out to the head of the department she desired to connect with.
It’s also important to note, this scenario can exist in more ways than looking for projects to be on. While employees struggle to find people and projects to connect with, team leads also face difficulties finding the right people for their projects. An internal opportunity marketplace can make connecting easier on both fronts.
We expect a lot from technology. Technology has the power to simplify our lives and we have become accustomed to incorporating it wherever necessary.
The technology behind internal opportunity marketplaces has come a long way as well. While there could have been the option of internal mobility within a company, there simply was no internal opportunity marketplace software to help employees easily locate and apply for positions.
Now, internal opportunity marketplace software has the power to not only bring transparency and accessibility, but also match people based on skill profile etc. to opportunities within their current company.
In addition to this, Structural easily integrates with Microsoft Teams, making it seamless to access the internal opportunity marketplace, opening employees up to opportunities right in the flow of work.
Talent Agility
Opportunity marketplaces promote talent agility and give employees the opportunity to move internally to jobs and projects that excite them. This in turn leads to an increase in productivity, helping the employee to grow within their company.
When employees are motivated to pursue opportunities and excited about the work they do, it will reflect positively in the company culture.
This relationship is not only socially, but economically beneficial to both the employer and the employee. Implementing an internal opportunity marketplace helps you capitalize on the advantages of internal recruitment to not only save the hiring manager time and energy, but also save the company money on outside contractors and agencies.
Employee Retention
According to studies conducted by the University of Rochester on the self-determination theory, true motivation comes from three things: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Basically, when people feel like they have a choice to engage in projects they want for growth and fulfillment; when people grow and become more skilled in their work through skill acquisition and find mentors and new opportunities; when people feel a sense of connectedness and belonging to their organization, they perform the best.
This is not just about employee happiness and fulfillment, this is not just about retaining more of your top talent that isn't swayed by more money, punishment, or pressure. Instead, this is about productivity effectiveness.
When your employees are more motivated, supported and successful in their careers they stay longer, work harder, and help the organization thrive while supporting a low retention rate.
Moving from Exclusion to Inclusion
Opportunity marketplace technology can accelerate diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI programs by making access to internal opportunities open to all. For too long, access to opportunity has leaned too heavily on ‘who you know.’ And we’re not just talking about promotions and new roles. Learning opportunities, mentorship, even stretch projects can be made widely available and easily accessible across the organization so you can quickly scale your inclusion efforts.
With more and more remote-first companies popping up every day, employees have more options than ever on where they can work. In turn, they have much higher expectations. They expect to have open and inclusive access to internal opportunities. And they expect work cultures that promote internal networking instead of put people into silos that frustrate people and slow down productivity.
Implementing an internal opportunity marketplace can increase employee retention, promote talent agility, systematize internal recruitment and help move your organization to a culture of inclusion instead of exclusion.
Interested in learning more about internal opportunity marketplaces? Simply get in touch, and we can answer any questions you may have.
Structural connects your entire organization to achieve sales goals, deliver world-class projects, and build dream teams.
