3 Key Internal Mobility Benefits and 4 Tips for Managers to Support Internal Mobility
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the UK job market. Although there are signs that the vaccine rollout has lifted hopes of recovery, a recent Bank of England report indicates that things will probably get a bit worse before they get better. In these uncertain times, many companies have implemented recruitment freezes while they wait and see how the economic recovery will unfold.
If you are a manager looking to fill in skills gaps while facing a hiring freeze, now is a great time to look at the talent available at your company and consider whether internal mobility could help meet your needs.
What is internal mobility?
Internal mobility means an employee moving to another job within the same company. The employee may move horizontally to different teams or job functions, or vertically to a more senior position.
Many employees are already engaged in internal mobility. According to LinkedIn’s 2021 Workplace Learning Report, 36% of learners in the UK have already spent time training to help them perform a different function within their organisations.
This figure is overwhelmed by the percentage of managers, 91%, who say they are supportive of their direct reports finding new opportunities within their companies.
We can take away two key insights from these findings:
1. The vast majority of managers are supportive of their team members moving to different job roles within their organisations because they recognise the benefits internal mobility brings to both the employees and the organisation.
2. Only slightly more than a third of learners are engaged in upskilling or reskilling to find new job roles internally. Thus more can be done to encourage internal mobility.
Read on to find out more about the top 3 benefits of internal mobility, and the 4 things you as a manager can do to support internal mobility.
What are the benefits of internal mobility?
The benefits of internal mobility are significant, both for the company overall and for individual employees. Building an organisational culture that both encourages and supports internal mobility can help you increase employee engagement, retention and more; which we explore below.
Benefit #1. Increase employee engagement
Findings from LinkedIn’s report show that employees who have found new roles within the organisation are 3.5 times more likely to be engaged than those who haven’t.
This benefits the organisation because more engaged employees means more motivated and productive employees. Additionally, the employees benefit because their higher engagement leads to better performance and faster career progression.
LinkedIn’s data also suggests that engaged employees are more likely to participate in internal mobility programmes - leading to a virtuous circle for your organisation and the employees.
Benefit #2. Increase employee retention
According to LinkedIn’s report, employees in companies with high internal mobility stay almost two times longer than those who don’t. Employees in companies with high internal mobility stay 5.4 years while those in companies with low mobility stay 2.9 years on average.
This matters to the organisation because current employees have an understanding of the organisational culture and internal processes, and have built relationships - all of which will take time for new external hires to learn and develop. It also takes longer to hire and train an external recruit than an internal hire.
Our most recent Learning and Development report highlighted that losing talent is a costly business. It’s estimated that re-hiring a position can cost a company up to nine months of that position’s salary, and that it takes an average of 28 weeks to get an employee up to speed. On the other end, the CLC reports that highly engaged organisations have the potential to reduce staff turnover by a whopping 87%¹.
¹CLC, Essay: Building Capital Engagement, 2011.
Benefit #3. Create a renewable source of talent
Having an internal mobility programme allows the company to move talent between departments. This allows managers to fill skill gaps while reducing the need to engage in the more time-consuming process of hiring externally.
In addition, internal mobility programmes can help you future-proof your workforce. In the near future, some employees could find themselves in roles that are no longer strategic for the company due to technological advances or economic changes.
If employees can acquire the skills to perform another function internally, not only will they be able to continue to thrive in their careers, your organisation will create a renewable pool of talent that can be reskilled for changing business needs.
This is particularly pertinent in the UK, where a widening skills gap combined with an ageing workforce requires a dedicated focus on training if companies want to mitigate those risks to their talent pipeline.
How can you prepare your team for internal mobility?
If, like the 91% of managers who are supportive of their team finding new opportunities within the company, you are convinced of the benefits of internal mobility, here are 4 tips to help your team prepare for internal mobility.
Tip #1. Help employees progress towards their career goals
You may think that you are already helping your team advance towards their career goals. However, it is good to take stock and see if your perception matches that of your team’s. According to LinkedIn’s report, only 40% of learners say their managers are challenging them to learn a new skill. Meanwhile, just over half, 53%, say that their managers support their career goals.
If you aren’t already doing so, you should actively ask your team about their career goals, and work with them to make a plan that will help them progress towards their career aspirations. This will often involve learning to build their skills so incorporate a learning plan into their career goals.
Tip #2. Continuous support e.g. mentoring and coaching
Even when your team members have set their career goals and made plans with you on how to progress, continuous support will help employees advance towards their aspirations.
This support could be in the form of regular meetings to discuss their career progression. Or it could be in the form of coaching and mentoring sessions. The coach or mentor could be the team’s direct manager or he/she could be another manager who is exclusively responsible for the employee’s professional development.
Participating in coaching programmes with coaches and mentors that focus exclusively on employees’ professional development will help your employees feel more valued and become more loyal to the company.
Tip #3. Instil team’s commitment to career development
By giving your team the tools and information to grow their careers, you will encourage your direct reports to be accountable for their own career growth.
You can encourage your team members to schedule time to focus on their development and goals, and to build their skills. You should give them access to the information on available opportunities for example in the form of a career planning system or an internal job board. Employees should be able to see the skill gaps for the job roles they want. They should also be able to identify a learning plan or a coach/mentor to help them bridge the gaps so that they can reach the next step in their career.
Tip #4. Encourage a culture of internal mobility in your organisation
Support your company’s internal mobility programme by ensuring that your team members are aware of the relevant policies. If there isn’t an internal mobility programme in your organisation, you can work with other managers and talent developers (for example in human resources) to build structured internal mobility processes. In addition, you can also explore overseas opportunities if you have offices in other countries, which can be facilitated with the help of an experienced relocation specialist.
For instance, you can do a skills audit of your team members. You can then pool those skills with the skills of other teams and help your company create an internal talent marketplace.
While doing the skills audit, it is important to bear in mind that the people who can easily move from one role to another are not only those with skills adjacencies, that is, skills that are similar to other skills.
A LinkedIn analysis for the World Economic Forum found that half of those who moved into data science and artificial intelligence professions were from unrelated occupations. This figure is higher for engineering roles (67%), content roles (72%) and sales roles (75%).
This tells us that people are capable of learning entirely new skills. Given the rate of technological change and the increasingly urgent need to retrain talent for the changing world of work, learning will be absolutely key to retain, retrain and renew your talent.
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