Talent mobility: An emerging hiring trend in Healthcare and Life Sciences

Scientist examining a sample through a microscope in a lab.

As the world comes to grips with changing demands caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, companies strive to stay ahead of the game with innovative and flexible approaches to talent search and management.

Talent within the healthcare and life sciences (HLS) sector has been the center of attention as the world looked to them for solutions during the global healthcare crisis. This important, rapidly growing sector had to align with global trends that have swept the world of work and mobility.

In life sciences and medical research, a changed world order has demanded a readjustment to talent mobility. Talent is moving less, and in some cases, differently in others. The sources from where the best talent emerges are also changing with the new circumstances.

Roles that were once location-based have now become location-agnostic. Michael Page’s recruiters are expanding their search to a broader area to fill some functionary roles like business development and regulatory jobs. The openness and flexibility to the concept of remote working is at the heart of this trend. The positive side-effect of a growing remote work culture means that the best candidates could be located further away and can still contribute productively.

Talent acquisition trend in APAC: Internal Mobility

Limited mobility emerging from travel restrictions, and in some cases, complications in paperwork processing between countries have led recruiters to source talent locally by restricting their search to smaller geographical areas. Forward-thinking companies are also investing in the training and development of local talent to fill the skills gaps they foresee in the near future.

An underrated and emerging trend is internal mobility. This involves moving employees across roles or a career change within the same company.

According to LinkedIn’s Future of Recruiting report, an average of 15% of employees in APAC has moved to a different role in their current company since the coronavirus pandemic.

“The reason why internal mobility is becoming so exacerbated now is due to the world of work evolving so quickly and to the extent that there are many new skills that we haven’t needed before,” says Olly Harris, Global Managing Director at Page Outsourcing.

A McKinsey special report titled ‘The Future of Work after Covid 19’, released in February 2021, surveyed eight countries and found that more than 100 million workers (or 1 in 16) will be forced to find a different occupation by 2030 to cope with the changing skill requirements. A focused push towards internal mobility could be the solution to the growing demand for upskilling and reskilling talent.

Benefits of Internal Mobility

Internal mobility is an emerging trend often overlooked as clients operate in a silo, says Harris. “When there is a need to hire, they go externally, and this is actually without talent acquisition even being aware of such a need or demand. As a result, few clients truly understand the potential of the individuals they already have within their organization.” And therefore, the employer is far better off assessing those existing skills and then up-skilling, training and growing the internal talent.

Besides retaining talent, this lateral movement keeps employees engaged. It enhances collaboration between departments and reduces disruption that a new hire usually brings. Rather than finding someone in the market, reskill your existing staff. Internal mobility also reduces cost as it retains talent without necessarily providing a salary increment.

The internal mobility trend can address new job titles bound to grow in demand, Harris explains. “These are skills that do not even exist today. So there is no point in going to the market to look for those skills. They don’t exist! The only option we, therefore, have is to train internal company employees up. This means that we move into the world of hiring for potential and skills rather than hiring for job titles. And when hiring and growing your talent, you are far better looking at your existing internal pool,” says Harris.