Driving Employee Engagement with Gigs and L&D

In today’s competitive talent market, building a resilient workforce is a focus for all organizations. In fact, 63.3% of companies say retaining employees is harder than hiring them. To gain an advantage, organizations must adopt a talent-first mindset that puts employees at the forefront.

But how?

It all starts with enabling employees to grow and evolve within your company. To transform the employee experience today, companies are establishing internal talent marketplaces where employees can identify where they are in their careers, where they want to go next, and opportunities for new jobs within their organizations (which we covered in more depth here).

To help employees grow and achieve their goals, employers must also provide ways to develop their skills. In this blog, we’ll cover two key ways to do so: internal gigs and learning and development.

Fostering Engagement with Internal Gigs

While companies are leveraging expensive consultants, contractors, and freelancers to take on short-term projects, their employees are gaining new skills and experiences through side jobs outside of their organization — ultimately increasing organizational costs and decreasing employee engagement. And with predictions stating that half the U.S. workforce could be made up of gig workers by 2027, the need to invest in internal gigs to develop and retain employees is imperative.

Workplace gigs — short-term, project based assignments (e.g., offering an employee with strong writing skills the opportunity to contribute to marketing content) — provide variety by fostering collaboration between departments and helping employees learn about different parts of the organization. They can also boost employee engagement and clarify career path trajectories, promoting a greater sense of belonging within the organization.

To launch an internal gig program within your organization, you'll first need to identify all internal talent and knowledge experts. An internal mobility platform makes this easier by evaluating the current skills within an organization. Some platforms that support internal gig programs can also be used by managers to create and publish listings for short-term work experiences, tasks, and projects. These discoverable “gigs” are then shared in an internal job board that is accessed by employees.

For this program to truly be successful, all employees’ skills should be entered within the internal mobility platform, helping the system match available jobs with all available internal skills. In Phenom, this can be done by having employees create and update their personal profiles to include their current skills.

For example, let’s say a new hire joins the sales department and adds “marketing” to their list of skills in their employee profile. When an internal marketing position opens up, it becomes a viable opportunity for that employee, saving your recruitment teams time, and boosting internal retention rates.

Offering Personalized Learning Opportunities

In addition to internal gigs, a well-rounded employee experience should include learning and development opportunities. Some of the most common are corporate universities, — which offer company-specific proprietary knowledge and certifications — and online courses — which offer employees the flexibility to learn on their own time and provide them with content designed to help them perform better in their roles.

But despite businesses investing billions into learning and development programs, over 50% of employees don’t think their employer understands their current capabilities. So why are these training programs failing?

For starters, they may not cater to employees' specific needs. To truly foster a workplace culture of growth and learning — and meet workers where they are in their journey — companies must create a tailored program for each individual around the challenges they face in their role, their career goals, and their personal learning styles.

Companies can rely on AI-powered technology to recommend specific learning content based on an employee's tailored career path, skills gaps, or goals, harnessing both their technical and soft skills. The most time-efficient learning is offered through online trainings or webinars, normally designed to deliver content in small, easy-understandable pieces that help keep employees engaged. These trainings are designed to develop employees’ skills and grow their knowledge on specific topics.

Stretch assignments offer another way to enrich employees’ skills and improve confidence in their roles by assigning them new tasks within their interests. These types of developmental opportunities, also known as “accelerators”, allow employees to gain the necessary competencies to move to the next level of their careers.

The Benefits of Empowering Employees

Now more than ever, employees want more than just a paycheck from their employer. They want the opportunity to develop their skills and to have a clear, personalized career path in front of them. Empowering employees to reach their goals will not only foster a more positive company culture, but it will boost retention and productivity, keeping the company moving forward.

Want to learn more? Watch our webinar “Gigs and L&D – A Winning Combination to Drive Employee Retention and Reduce Costs” on demand to learn how to better connect with your employees on where they are and where they want to go by providing a seamless employee experience with clear goals and objectives.

Tom Tate