| The Mobility Centres implementation manual > Role of mobility centre |
| One of the first decisions to be taken in relation to the introduction of a mobility centre in a company is whether it is for: |
- a specific purpose and for a limited time period, e.g. the need to facilitate external mobility in a redundancy situation;
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- implementing employee mobility policies to facilitate enhanced organisational capacity to respond to changing market needs i.e. a mobility centre with a long term time-frame.
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| The assessment of the role that the mobility centre will play within the company will have a major bearing on the services it provides and the resources it will require. |
| The decision to set up a mobility centre should ideally involve management and employees and/or employee representatives. Where employees are involved in the decision to establish a mobility centre it is likely that it will gain a wider acceptance among the work force than would be the case if the decision was taken by management alone. If this was the case, employees might see the mobility centre as being imposed on them to hasten their departure from the company and refuse to co-operate with it. The involvement by employees and/or employee representatives in the decision-making process can be important in terms of evangelising its acceptance by employees. |
| Analysis of existing and desired levels of employee mobility |
| It is important that the organisation undertakes an assessment of the extent of existing mobility among employees and has identified what is the optimal level of employee mobility. The organisation should seek to collect data on existing employee mobility which can be used to measure the outputs of the mobility centre. Data might, for example, be collected on internal mobility, levels of in- and out-flows of personnel, age profile of employees, length of service, level of training provided, salary scales, etc. These indicators seldom give specific answers but may give indications where a mobility centre can have an input. |
| An analysis of the desired levels of employee mobility should be undertaken to identify the target groups for the mobility centre. For example, if a company decided to seek external mobility of all employees in a certain department where there was excess staff, it could result in employees leaving the company with skills that are in demand in other parts of the business. It is important that the mobility centre's target groups are thoroughly researched and identified. The size of these target groups will have an important bearing on the scale of the mobility centres. |
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| Provide in-house or sub-contract |
| When the decision has been taken to proceed with a mobility centre the issue arises whether the company itself should operate the centre or whether it should be contracted out to an external organisation which has experience in this area. There are a number of companies in Ireland and the UK, for example, which could provide this service. Some of the companies are out-placement companies while others specialise in the operation of mobility centres. The benefit of using external service providers is that they may be seen to be more independent and may have previous experience of running mobility centres. If the company wishes to operate a mobility centre for a short time period and for a specific purpose e.g. to assist employees leaving the company under a redundancy programme to find alternative careers, then contracting out the management of the mobility centre may be a cost-effective solution. |
| The advantage of the company operating the mobility centre itself is that the personnel will have in-depth knowledge of the organisation and its policies. Where the mobility centre is intended to be a long term investment, the use of internal staff to operate the centre may be more economical in terms of resource inputs. |
| Another advantage is that the company can get direct feed-back from clients of the mobility centre, for example, on the range and adequacy of services provided. This type of feed-back might be more difficult to obtain if an external service provider was used. |
| One option is for the company to operate the mobility centre itself but bring in external expertise as and when required. For example, eircom has contracted out the provision of start your own business training courses to external consultants who are experienced in this area. Through staffing the mobility centre with people drawn from the work force, the company benefits from having mobility centre executives who understand the culture of the organisation. |
| Small companies may have difficulties with the resource requirements required to establish a mobility centre. In the Netherlands, a mobility centre has been established by a group of 85 organisations in three provinces. This approach could be an option for small to medium sized companies to implement a mobility strategy. |
| It is possible to operate a mobility centre on a small scale utilising external resources. Companies should investigate the information and support services available from external bodies such as FAS. The following section of this web site, resources, provides information on external organisations which can provide assistance to companies wishing to operate a mobility centre. |
| Clients |
| The mobility centre may have a number of possible end-users or clients of its services. While the main focus of the services provided by the mobility centre may be on employees, it can also provide a service to managers of business units which either need to reduce numbers or recruit new staff members. The board of the company and/or senior management may also be an end-user of the services provided by the mobility centre in terms of providing input to the development of employee mobility strategy. |
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