Mobility lies we believed
Last year I set out to build software that makes it easy for people to stay at their current company. I’ve long believed that mobility is a missing link in recruiting and retention. For AGES, we have focused on dumping new names into the top of the funnel and has become (maybe it always was) an unsustainable model.
When I started building with my team, in conjunction with my incredible customers, I had a lot of preconceived notions of what mobility means. Honestly, being a founder means you see a problem that you can solve. A problem that you may have experienced and would love to have had a more elegant solution than the status quo. That’s how innovation is born from my lens.
So when I was trying to solve for mobility and retention, I came to the table with a lot of ideas and preconceived notions. Some of those notions were born from my own experience. For example, in my career, I have had an opportunity to work with incredible employers, but I am one who is easily bored with the same old, so I like to move. And every time I would talk to my manager about what was next, they would say: “We have a plan for you.” And I never understood why I wasn’t part of that plan. It was MY career after all.
So, we built a tool that allows employees to make their own plan and move around the company and allow those moves to align with their own personal goals and moments.
Flawed assumption 1: Mobility is about “moving up”
And when we were building, I assumed that people wanted to go up! Always UP. It was one of the reasons I was concerned about this idea working. Because with UP comes scarcity. The hierarchy of most companies is just that, a hierarchy. There are fewer opportunities up. My assumptions were that everyone wants to go UP.
Then, after one year live with real employees, I learned what I had secretly known all along. Sometimes it’s up, but most times, it’s over, or somewhere else, or a new team, a new location, a new use for my skills.
There was a time in my career where UP was all I wanted. I needed to ascend. And then I didn’t really care about ascending. I only cared about fixing/changing/making things better or more impactful.
I also assumed that mobility was for career-ists. Which leads me to…
Flawed assumption 2: Mobility isn’t interesting for hourly workers
More than 50% of all applications flowing through WORQDRIVE in the last year have been to hourly roles. Hourly talent want an opportunity to move around as well. They want to take their craft, their skills and leverage them in other areas, other ways, other locations, and on other teams. The reality is mobility is for everyone.
In fact, I have actually heard prospects tell me that they don’t want to give their hourly employees a tool like this because they will just apply to salaried roles they aren’t qualified for. First of all, that’s why we use matching and not open search. People won’t see jobs they don’t have the skills for. Second, the assumption that hourly wants to move to salary is fundamentally flawed and I have the data that proves it. The majority of applications flowing through WORQDRIVE were hourly professionals applying to hourly jobs.
The reality is people want to stay. They want to be engaged. They want to have opportunities presented to them. They want to use their skills and grow with you. We know this because we get to see how people use the tools they are given and when those tools are build to support them and their goals, they use it. It’s our opportunity to help them stay. To share opportunities, to keep them engaged. And to leave all of our flawed assumptions behind and try. Try to make the workplace better, more open, egalitarian. Try to provide our best people with opportunities that engage them and keep them working with us. We can do this. I know it.