The Power of Internal Mobility

Looking for your next great hire? The answer may be sitting right in front of you – literally. Too often overlooked, internal mobility offers multiple benefits to the morale, productivity, and finances of an organization.

Internal mobility in a company refers to the movement of employees within the organization, from one role or position to another. It can be either horizontal, where an employee moves to a different job at the same level, or vertical, where an employee moves to a higher or lower level of the organization.

Internal mobility programs provide opportunities for employees to develop their skills, explore different career paths, and gain exposure to new areas of the organization. This can help to increase job satisfaction, employee retention, and engagement, as well as provide a cost-effective way for organizations to fill open positions by leveraging existing talent.

Internal mobility can take many forms, including promotions, transfers, secondments, job rotations, and stretch assignments. The specific opportunities available to employees may vary depending on the organization's size, structure, and culture.

Want to learn more? Read on for three big benefits of utilizing internal mobility.

 1. Increased Engagement

According to the Pew Research Center, 63% of workers who quit a job in 2021 cited a lack of opportunities for advancement as a major reason for wanting to leave. Without prospects for advancement in skills, pay, or titles, workers are left with no reason to believe they can grow in their careers from within their current organization. This leads to disengagement, quiet quitting, and decreased performance. Simply put, when employers don't show that they see a future with their employees, they don't either.

If you'd like to see increased engagement in your employees, providing opportunities for internal mobility may be the cure you're looking for. In their 2021 Workplace Learning report, LinkedIn showed that employees who accept new jobs within their same company are 3.5 times more likely to be engaged at work. This may explain why internal hires also tend to outperform external hires, who are 61% more likely to be fired than those who received promotions from within their organization.

Employees who can see brighter futures at their current companies will likely work harder and with more enthusiasm in their jobs today. Their co-workers can recognize this as well, improving morale more generally, too.

 2. Decreased Turnover

According to a study completed by CareerAddict, 82% of workers would consider leaving their jobs if staying offered no prospect of promotion. Additionally, in the current job market, employees often stand to gain better raises and title increases through job hopping than they do by remaining at their current company. This leads to increased turnover rates, which slows productivity, overworks remaining employees, and dampens morale. These conditions can lead to a vicious cycle of even higher turnover.

Good employees will always seek to outgrow their current positions – this is the mark of a worker with skill and a growth mindset. Instead of discouraging this positive quality or making it a matter of attrition, providing growth opportunities within your organization puts these positive qualities to work for you. Your employees will likely reward this move with increased loyalty – according to research conducted by LinkedIn, employees at companies with high internal mobility tend to stay almost twice as long. Research by ILR comparing internal and externally-hired candidates also indicates that the best-performing internal hires tend to stay as time passed, whereas the best-performing external hires are more likely to leave.

3. Decreased Spending

Odds are your company is already taking advantage of the job-hopping phenomenon on the hiring end, offering raises and title increases to incoming new hires as they leave other companies. Promoting from within allows you to gain from both ends of the equation. Hiring internal rather than external candidates allows you to save significant funds. The costs associated with locating, vetting, onboarding, relocating, and training new candidates typically cost thousands of dollars for each new hire, while the same process with internal candidates usually costs only half as much. This phenomenon, along with decreased turnover, could save your organization money, which can be reinvested in recruiting and employee retention, continuing to provide the same benefits.

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