| BENEFITS OF MOBILITY CENTRES |
| The introduction of a mobility centre within an organisation can bring a number of benefits not only during times when reductions in employee numbers are required but also during times of labour shortages when companies must maximise its existing work force. |
| Enhancing external mobility |
The mobility centre can play an important role in facilitating external mobility when an organisation needs to reduce staff numbers. The mobility centre can achieve this by providing employees with information on external job openings and by providing training on job search techniques. The fact that the company is providing services to employees who are being made redundant over and above to what is the norm can play an important role in maintaining good relations with the work force and, additionally, can reduce the negative publicity that large-scale lay-offs can generate within the economy. This latter point is particularly the case if the organisation has a high public profile.
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| Facilitating internal mobility |
By providing information to employees on job opportunities within the organisation, the mobility centre can facilitate internal mobility of employees. This can have the benefit of retaining existing employees along with their skills and expertise. There can also be the incentivising and loyalty generating effect of encouraging employees to seek higher level positions within the company. In situations where there is full employment within the economy, the mobility centre can facilitate internal mobility so that job openings in one part of the company can be filled by employees from other parts of the company.
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| Encouraging acceptance of a climate of change |
Through its work in providing counselling and other support services to employees, the mobility centre can facilitate an acceptance of change among staff. Given that the only constant is change, the role that the mobility centre can play in assisting employees to deal with change can be a significant benefit. Organisations where employees have the ability to cope with rapid organisational change are much more likely to progress than those organisations where there is a deep hostility and suspicion to organisational change.
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| Maximising employee contribution |
The saying "square pegs into round holes" can sometimes be very apt description of employees who occupy positions for which they are clearly not suitable. The mobility centre can play a role in assisting employees to find the most suitable career path and thus maximise their individual skills and talents. The company can benefit from having employees whose combination of skills and expertise match those required by the position they hold.
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| Facilitating training and life-long learning |
With their emphasis on preparing employees for career change, mobility centres can create an awareness among employees of the importance of training and life-long learning. Mobility centres can begin the process by undertaking skill audits of employees and highlighting the importance of new skill acquisition in terms of future career development. Through linkages that the mobility centre may have developed with external organisations it can point employees to relevant providers of education and training provision.
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| Creating more flexible and adaptable organisations |
The services that the mobility centre can play in facilitating employee mobility can result in the organisation becoming more flexible and adaptable in response to changes in the market-place. History has shown that organisations which can adapt to change are much more likely to survive in the longer term. It is a truism that the only constant is more change and if a company has flexibility and adaptability as a result of employees who are more mobile then it has a better chance of being able to cope with external changes.
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| Too good to be true ... |
| Mobility centres are not without their difficulties and one major difficulty is that to be effective they can require a substantial amount of resources. This means that they can be beyond the capability of small enterprises who may not have the financial or managerial resources to establish a mobility centre. It should be pointed out that there is no legal obligation on companies to establish a mobility centre even during a redundancy situation. |
| The resource issue can be a major barrier; however, the experience of recent Irish companies suggest that a mobility centre can be established with limited resources. Such centres can make greater use of external resources such as those provided by FÁS. Another option is to sub-contract the services provided by internal mobility centres to an outside company. |
| In the Netherlands, use has been made of networks of small companies to form mobility centres which members of the network can use. |
| If a mobility centre was established to deal with a down-sizing situation there may be negative connotations for both management and employees for its continued existence. It is, therefore, important that the potential role of mobility centres in facilitating employee mobility into, within and without an organisation be fully realised. |
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