Internal Mobility Programs for Development and Employee Belonging

Internal Mobility Programs at a Glance

Internal mobility programs are organizational initiatives that encourage the movement of employees to new opportunities and roles within the company. These programs offer existing employees the chance to develop their knowledge and skills, embrace new professional experiences and reach their career goals. For organizations, internal mobility programs foster internal talent retention and reduce hiring costs, bridge skills gaps, enhance succession planning, build and retain institutional knowledge, break down siloes and more, ultimately contributing to higher performance.

This article explores internal mobility programs, their benefits and how to effectively structure them.

Types of Internal Mobility

When people think of talent mobility, upward mobility may be the first type that comes to mind. But internal mobility can go in all directions. While many employees may aim for a promotion on their existing career ladder, others may find the perfect career move in another department, another role completely, a job exchange or participating in a mentorship, for example. Effective internal mobility programs should be designed to encourage a variety of types of mobility, such as:

• Promotions: Employees move upward to a higher-level or management role
• Transfers: Employees are transferred laterally to a different unit, department or role
• Job rotations: Employee work in a variety of roles on rotation
• Job swaps: Employees switch jobs with other employees, often for a limited period of time
• Mentorships: Employees are guided and supported by a mentor who shares knowledge and offers support and advice
• Employee resource groups (ERGs): Employees join together in a group, often based on shared identities or interests, for mutual support
• Cross-team projects: Employees from different departments or teams work together to achieve a common goal
• Project-based roles: Employees work on a specific project, in place of or in addition to current roles

Why Employees Value Internal Mobility

When an organization offers opportunities for internal mobility, employees have more choices — to learn and develop, to grow with the company, to take on leadership roles and explore career changes. And the more choices an employee has, the more likely they are to land in a role that they enjoy and that helps them fulfill their potential. If employees know they’re able to fulfill their career goals right where they are, there’s no need to go searching outside the company. Here are some of the specific reasons why internal mobility programs are popular with internal talent.

Sense of Belonging

When a company offers workers opportunities for internal mobility, employees feel valued, which contributes to a sense of belonging and loyalty to the organization. This can also contribute to more employee engagement and a positive workplace culture in which employees feel good about their prospects and their employment situation in general. When employees have a sense of belonging, it’s also a big benefit to employers. Employees are 5.3x more likely to feel empowered to do their best work when they have a sense of belonging in the workplace.

Purpose-Driven Employees

Company initiatives that enable internal mobility cultivate motivation among employees. A successful internal mobility program signals to employees that the enterprise supports them in developing their potential and reaching their goals. When employees know they have real opportunities to grow and move within the organization, and they see how colleagues are rewarded for talent and hard work, they’re more motivated to make the effort to take advantage of those opportunities.

Breaking Down Silos

Career mobility helps break down organizational silos in a few different ways. Career mobility within the organization means that people are moving around rather than staying only in one area. This cultivates connections and relationships throughout the company and protects against siloes. Internal mobility initiatives such as mentoring and training programs also help break down siloes by bringing people from different areas of the company together for career development.

Benefits of Promoting from Within

Internal mobility programs increase internal talent hiring, providing multiple benefits to organizations, including:

Skilled Workforce

Internal mobility can help organizations close critical skills gaps. Internal is one of the pillars of a strong internal mobility program, and this can be tailored to focus on skills that are especially needed by the organization. Mobility programs can contribute to employee skill development through many different initiatives, including mentorship programs, direct skills training, exposure to other roles, shadowing opportunities and more. These help existing talent develop diverse and valuable hard and soft skills. With homegrown talent at hand, organizations can fill critical roles faster with people who have the right skills, closing skill gaps and contributing to higher productivity and morale.

Employee Retention

When employees don’t feel they have the chance to grow where they are, they’ll search elsewhere. But having employee growth and mobility opportunities right where you are is a powerful motivator to stay. Organizations that commonly hire internal candidates send the signal that they value internal talent and will offer plenty of opportunity for talent mobility if an employee stays with the company. In fact, employees at companies that regularly hire existing talent are likely to remain with the company 41% longer, according to LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends report, showing that internal talent acquisition and employee retention go together.

Not only do internal hires stay longer, they’re typically more successful as well. Research from the University of Pennsylvania reveals that workers promoted internally perform better than external hires across all performance measures and job specifications.

Recruiting Savings

Another benefit of focusing on internal recruitment is cost savings. Replacing employees is expensive, with costs ranging from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary, according to Gallup. Hiring externally can significantly increase recruitment costs, as the search process is often more time- and resource-intensive, and external candidates typically command higher salaries than existing employees. External hiring can also cost more in terms of productivity, existing employee morale and performance.

Even with an emphasis on internal recruiting, companies will always have to do some external hiring. When the organization has a good reputation as a company that supports and nurtures existing employees, top talent will seek that organization out, increasing candidate quality and cutting down on the time and resources required to fill roles.

How to Structure an Internal Mobility Program

An effective program starts with a strong internal mobility strategy. Organizations need to identify what they intend to gain from a mobility program and carefully plan its structure and initiatives to optimize the benefits.

Identify Needs and Resources

The first step in creating your program is assessing existing internal mobility. At this stage, you can start by asking questions such as:

• What’s the current state of internal mobility at the company?
• What are the gaps in current internal mobility?
• What do you want internal mobility to look like?

You can also look at situations within the company that could be improved with more internal mobility. These could include:

• High employee turnover
• High recruiting costs
• Difficulty filling open positions
• Skills gaps
• Lack of effective internal talent pipelines
• Low employee satisfaction/engagement

Looking at both where you are now and where you want to be can help you set concrete goals for your program.

You’ll also need to evaluate the resources available to establish your program. This starts with buy-in and support from leadership. Other resources include human resources to create, implement and operate your program, financial resources to fund initiatives and software and other tools for efficient administration.

Get Employee Input

An effective internal mobility program needs to meet both the needs of the organization and employees, so it’s vital to get input from employees. This could take the form of one-on-one interviews with employees and managers, companywide surveys or workshops. Getting employees’ point of view can help leaders get a better understanding of how the workforce feels about current internal mobility opportunities, what kind of mobility opportunities they would like to have, and the kinds of programs they would like to see to encourage more internal mobility.

Develop Training and Development Methods

Once you’ve assessed your current program, identified your organizational needs and have gathered employee feedback, you can decide on which training and talent development methods to use. These can include one-on-one programs such as mentoring, sponsorship and job shadowing and cross-training. Group options could range from skills training courses or workshops or employee resource group (ERG) projects.

One way to start is to prioritize initiatives according to the company’s most pressing needs, such as skills gaps or lowering recruitment costs. Another consideration is getting the most value out of your investment by starting with programs that have proven to be successful at other organizations. Mentoring, for example, has been used for decades and has been shown to have a positive effect on employee mobility. One study showed that 25% of employees in a test group who took part in a company’s mentoring program had a salary grade change within a five-year period, compared with 5% of employees in a control group who did not participate in the program.

Each initiative will need to be assigned a leader/administrator who will develop the structures and processes for each program, including modalities and platforms, such as in-person vs. virtual or remote options. Existing specialized technology can offer a foundation to help get programs off the ground quickly. For example, Chronus offers mentorship software and ERG software to help organizations easily establish these programs and run them efficiently. Built-in structure and automation take the heavy lifting off administrators, while still empowering organizations to customize their programs to meet their needs.

Track Success

When you set goals for your program, these should be SMART — specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Being measurable is especially important for tracking the effectiveness of your program. Metrics for each initiative should be defined and measured at regular intervals. Technology can help make this easier. For example, Chronus mentoring software provides robust analytical reporting to easily establish benchmarks and track essential success metrics for mentoring programs

Driving Success Through Internal Talent Mobility

Internal talent mobility provides multiple benefits to organizations. But it doesn’t happen on its own. Companies need to create a thoughtful internal mobility strategy and support it with structures and initiatives that help them reach their mobility goals. Companies that implement a successful internal mobility program are able to leverage the potential of existing employees and reap the advantages of a skilled, productive, engaged workforce that fuels strong company performance.