Creating an environment that fosters internal mobility

Luke Fleming, director of human resources at ICC Sydney, believes in creating lifelong opportunities for team members within the organisation.

“One of the mantras that we have at ICC Sydney is that we want to create careers not just jobs,” he told HRD Australia.

“In trying to create careers rather than just jobs, it's really important that we create an environment where our team members can grow not only with us but with themselves.”

Providing opportunities for the employees to learn and develop internally has reaped benefits for ICC Sydney.

“It means that we have longer retention periods with that team, which is great for the team because it drives engagement with them,” he said. “From a business perspective, it means that we are growing our own talent and [we’re] not necessarily in a situation where we need to go to market all the time.”

The National HR Summit

Fleming will be one of the speakers at the National HR Summit, which will take place at the Winx Stand, Royal Randwick, Sydney from 20-21 March 2024. The Summit will feature a main conference, a director’s forum, an industry expo, and a program of workshops.

Fleming will be on the panel about developing internal mobility to optimise your workforce. Fellow panellists include Katherine Zangari, head of culture, leadership & learning at Findex, David Bellas director, LinkedIn Talent Solutions, LinkedIn and Angela Johnston, head of learning and development transformation at Merivale.

“I think the most important thing around internal mobility is ensuring that you're creating an environment that is developing people and, in particular, it's developing the skills or capabilities that they have,” Fleming said.

He described how ICC Sydney has a range of programs to develop employees at all levels of the organisation. These include an AV graduate program; a professional growth traineeship program where TAFE NSW students can also work at ICC; and having eLearning opportunities.

“Internally, we offered last year over 7000 hours of internal training,” Fleming said.

ICC Sydney also works with a range of industry associations that also develop talent and offer leadership programs, including the International Association of Convention Centres, the Venue Management Association, and ASM Global – its parent company.

“What we're trying to do is aim different styles of learning, both internally and externally, at different groups or cohorts within the workplace, giving them different styles of learning at different levels,” he said. “And really the aim of that is to ensure that when opportunities become available, our internal talent have grown and have the skills to move into the next role, when those roles become available.

“We've had a considerable number of people in the last 12 months transition from our casual pool into our permanent pool often as a promotion. And we've also had a considerable number of internal promotions across the last 12 months.”

Encouraging internal mobility

Fleming believes the environment you create is a key factor that can encourage internal mobility in a workplace.

“If you're not putting any focus on the people that work for you and giving them opportunities to learn and grow, then you're…going to have a position where people are going, ‘Do I want to stay with you or to look at other roles?’”

Another idea Fleming suggested was having an open-door policy around career opportunities.

“If people aren't comfortable to tell you what they like and what they don't like, then you're not going to know what it is that they're trying to achieve,” he said. “And hence you can’t help them on that journey.”

Fleming also believes in creating opportunities that don’t necessarily exist in an employee’s normal role. For example, letting teams spend some time helping in different departments.

“It's very easy for myself or my team to sit in on HR based projects,” he said. “But how do I start to expand the HR team’s understanding of what happens in marketing and what happens on the floor?”

And this could mean helping staff who plate up food and deliver it to guests in the ballroom, Fleming explained.

“We're good in this space, we quite often ask our team members to go work on the floor,” he said.  “And it really gives them a frontline sense of what our core business is. And gives them a new perspective around the decisions or the things that they're working on, which are fundamental to the way our core business operates.”