What Is Internal Mobility and How to Get It Right

According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Future of Recruiting Report, 75% of recruiting pros say internal recruiting will be an important factor shaping talent acquisition over the next five years. And a recent survey of nearly 3,000 C-suite executives showed that CEOs consider internal mobility a top priority. 

Unfortunately, employees themselves aren’t always seeing a corresponding commitment to internal mobility as they think about next steps in their careers. According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report, only 15% of employees say their organization encouraged them to move to a new role.

Clearly, just wanting internal mobility isn’t enough to make it happen. There are often cultural and structural barriers that prevent organizations from offering the kind of internal mobility options they want to provide. To create an internal mobility program that both your employees and leadership crave, these barriers must be confronted and conquered. 

What is internal mobility?

Internal mobility refers to the ability of employees to grow and advance their careers within their organization, often by transitioning into new roles or functions. At companies with robust internal mobility programs, employees always know which role they’re aiming for next and what they need to do to get there. They don’t feel limited by a rigid career path. 

Why is internal mobility important?

Internal mobility can increase employee satisfaction, retention, productivity, and engagement; reduce time and cost to hire; and develop high-potential employees with an eye toward leadership succession planning. It’s also becoming more important than ever as the workforce grows younger and craves diverse opportunities. 

Here are a few data-backed reasons why internal mobility should be a priority at your organization: 

Internal mobility is a top priority for the next generation of workers

According to the Workplace Learning Report, the top two priorities for 18-to-34-year-old professionals when they’re considering a new job are “opportunities for career growth within the company” and “opportunities to learn and develop new skills.”

Gen Z is 47% more likely than Gen X to prioritize opportunities to advance within their companies and 45% more likely to prioritize opportunities to develop new skills. In fact, more than one in three (35%) professionals between 18 and 34 listed “opportunities for career growth within the company” as the No. 1 consideration when evaluating new jobs.

Internal mobility increases employee retention

Ninety-three percent of organizations are concerned about retaining their employees this year. Data also shows that providing employees with internal mobility opportunities is one of the best ways to keep them around. Consider the following:

• Employees who made an internal move within their organization have a 75% chance of remaining at that company after two years of employment. 
• Employees who did not make any internal moves only had a 56% chance of staying put after two years. 
• Employees who work at companies with high internal mobility rates end up staying with that organization an average of 60% longer.

Retaining talent saves money

Research indicates that only 20% of employees believe they have the right conditions for career growth opportunities within their current organization. The other 80% are primed to leave their organization sooner, leaving behind roles that will need to be filled.

With an average time of one to three months to secure outside candidates for these roles and a cost of six to nine months’ pay to recruit and train new salaried employees, external hiring involves a great deal of time and resources.

When positions are filled internally, hiring costs are reduced by nearly 20%. This is particularly important in 2023, when 53% of in-house recruiting pros predict that their recruiting budget will stay flat or even decrease this year.

Internal mobility incentivizes learning

Globally, an employee's top motivation for taking advantage of on-the-job learning opportunities is to help them make progress toward their own career goals. By offering a genuine path for your employees to achieve promotions or new roles within your organization, you’ll motivate them to make the most of the learning opportunities you offer. 

Why are so many companies getting internal mobility wrong?

There are some outdated behaviors and modes of thinking that act as roadblocks for internal mobility. Changing these modes of thinking is the most important way you can facilitate a culture of internal mobility today. Start by avoiding the following:

The corporate ladder mindset

The concept of the corporate ladder has been around for over a century. With this model of internal mobility, career tracks move along a singular upward trajectory with increasing rewards, but fewer opportunities the higher up the ladder an employee moves. 

Why it doesn’t work

The problem with the “ladder” mindset is that it is incredibly limiting, for both the individual and the employer. 

Employers might only look down the ladder for potential internal hires, missing the opportunity to promote exceptional talent from other areas of the company. 

Workers might also reach a certain point on the traditional corporate ladder and believe there are no more opportunities for them to advance, at which point they may look elsewhere.

What to try

Removing the ladder mindset from your corporate culture requires buy-in from the top. Leadership needs to think about career pathing and internal prospecting in a whole new light and to communicate this to the workforce in a way that encourages individualized career plans.

Opportunities for movement within the organization should encompass both the vertical and lateral planes. If a visual metaphor helps, imagine replacing the ladder with a climbing wall or a garden trellis. Workers can move across the platform at any level or continue their upward climb.

This brings us directly to the next roadblock . . . 

Departmental silos

Driven by the need to openly and equitably share data across departments, the practice of siloing is fast becoming a thing of the past.

But not everyone has gotten the memo. 

Why they don’t work

Siloing of talent by managers is a detriment to the whole organization. Some managers believe that they “own” their top-performing employees. If a manager regularly discourages workers from applying for internal jobs outside of their department, those employees will eventually look elsewhere for advancement opportunities. 

What to try

It’s important to lead your management team to the understanding that internal mobility is vital for the well-being of the organization.

You might try setting up talent pool partnerships between departments to encourage a collaborative mindset. According to LinkedIn data, for example, some of the most common transition pathways are:

1. Accounting to finance
2. Marketing to sales
3. Business development to sales

Even reluctant managers should see the benefit of broadening their own internal talent acquisition opportunities. 

Promoting from within the inner circle

While a healthy social culture within an organization supports employee well-being, granting promotions based on favoritism almost always has the opposite effect.

Why it doesn’t work

When managers forgo formal channels to promote internal candidates, much can get missed. One study published in the Harvard Business Review showed that employees hired through informal relationship-based referrals underperformed on a wide range of measures when compared with those hired through postings and more formal processes.

For example, a full vetting process might reveal that the candidate could use additional training to prepare for the role, or that they aren’t the right fit at all. Worse still, another ideal candidate might be elsewhere within your organization, but they aren’t on the hiring team’s radar because they don’t have the same social connections. 

What to try

While a manager’s stamp of approval on an internal candidate is a strong recommendation, it can’t replace the insight that comes from walking all candidates through the same hiring process. 

Encourage your managers to offer names of candidates they think might best fill open positions, but maintain the autonomy of your hiring team. When every candidate goes through the same process, it levels the playing field.

The role of L&D in creating a culture of internal mobility

There are many opportunities for L&D to take part in fostering a healthy culture of internal mobility in your organization. 

Skill-based learning opportunities

Only 26% of employees say their organization challenged them to learn a new skill in 2022. This is a problem because providing skill-based learning opportunities is one of the best ways L&D professionals can pave the way for internal mobility. 

By helping employees understand what skills they need to move to their next role and then providing them with the opportunities to learn these skills, you’re giving them a much more concrete path toward achieving their own career goals and incentivizing them to make the most of your learning opportunities. 

More and more professionals agree that skills are the future of hiring: 94% of recruiting pros report that understanding employee skills is required to make informed talent decisions and 81% say upskilling and reskilling employees will be an important factor shaping the future of recruiting.

Organizational growth mindset

An organization with a growth mindset is essential for developing internal talent. By making skill-building a part of the employee experience, your workforce knows your company is invested in their continued development.

In addition to individual skill-building, encourage participation in social and community-based learning opportunities. These group learning experiences contribute to cross-department connections and help pull down those silos. 

Individualized career pathing

Every person in your organization has a unique path that led them to where they are now. So, why should we expect them to step onto a single preset path moving forward?

By working with employees to map out their individual career path, you can set skill-building goals that will prepare them to apply for those internal opportunities when they arise.

Only 14% of employees say their organization encouraged them to build a new career development plan. This is a huge opportunity for L&D to prove their worth on terms that will make sense to everyone. By developing skill-based career development plans for your entire workforce, you will make internal mobility a concrete, measurable, and attainable goal.