Igniting Internal Mobility to Fuel Growth

How to leverage internal employee promotion

An asset employee is neither stagnant nor complacent. Over the course of their tenure at any organization, a good employee gathers new skills and knowledge to add to the kindling of their career, and a smart manager makes him/herself aware of those acquisitions—and knows when it’s just the right time to hand them the match with which to ignite this kindling into fuel that will burn brightly for both parties. Sometimes that match is a raise, or an award, or a bonus—but often what provides the most heat and burns the longest is movement within the organization. The issue of internal mobility has plagued talent acquisition and recruitment teams, it seems, since the beginning of corporate time. For many U.S. corporations, the generally-accepted practice is to continue to spend millions of dollars on external recruitment to fill new positions, and to all but ignore or discount the promotion and movement of internal talent. Many CEOs recognize that the problems, few have taken any steps to correct it—an inertia that’s costing U.S. companies big in recruiting budgets, talent loss, and opportunities to boost market strength and innovation. Think about the most creative, innovative, and nimble companies of our time—let’s say 10. Chances are high that most companies on your list have a dynamic internal structure and an appreciation for entrepreneurial management and ideas. It’s likely that they devote time and energy into shaking things up when things sink too far down into the status quo. And their freshness in the market—their unique products, their growth, their stock prices—reflects those practices. Contrary to the outdated belief that a stagnating company needs new blood from the outside, one of the most effective ways to achieve this refresh rate in your company is to develop smart internal mobility policies that take advantage of your current talent pool, give employees a more holistic experience within the company, encourage skill growth, and improve employee loyalty. Types of Employee Mobility There are four common types of employee mobility: Internal-lateral, internal-upward, external-lateral, and external-upward. Internal-lateral mobility refers to an employee’s movement within the organization to a new role with no appreciable increase in pay or responsibilities. Internal-upward mobility, commonly called promotion or advancement, refers to an employee’s movement within an organization to a new role that includes an increase in pay and responsibilities. When the move to a similar position with a new organization with little to no increase in pay or responsibilities, it’s an external-lateral move. Finally, a move to a new organization with an increase in pay and responsibilities is referred to as external-upward. Less common mobility categories are a demotion, or decrease in hours (going from full-time to part-time). For the purposes of this article, we’ll be focusing solely on internal mobility—lateral and upward. When most people think of internal mobility, what we’re thinking of is internal-upward mobility, i.e., promotions. And of course, promotions make sense. Loyal, hardworking employees want to and should be rewarded with advancement. But the most common type of promotion—the incremental step up within the confines of one department into a role comprised of more but ultimately similar responsibilities—misses a valuable opportunity. And this is where great companies take a page from small business owners and entrepreneurs: The many-hats approach. When an employee in charge of tracking marketing ROI expresses interest in related data-driven processes, and takes the initiative to educate her/himself on best practices, new technologies, and innovative new ways to use data isn’t necessarily going to be fulfilled by—or shine in—a promotion to the role of marketing manager. Instead, s/he might be an ideal candidate for the company’s growing data science department. Even if the move is lateral vs. upward, a company offering this kind of transition is showing the employee that the company values their new skills, has faith in them, and wants to provide them with new opportunities to develop their skills and interests. In turn, the laterally-moving employee brings with them an existing knowledge of another department, is already versed in company goals and culture, and is in the process of becoming a more well-rounded, and therefore increasingly valuable, member of the team. It’s been a bit of a mystery unearthing why so many companies fail to take advantage of internal mobility, but it seems we can at least in part blame the inadequacies of technology. Most recruiting tools aren’t built to analyze how employee skills in one area might translate to another. In these terms, job boards are still a crude mechanism for filling open positions within an organization. Most boards automate the functions of recruiting, leaving little room for thoughtful analysis, and are focused on a very narrow set of short-term outcomes, such as “post job internally for five days, then post externally for 30 days.” A better approach would be, for instance, to use technology to catalog and then later to mine sets of “career coordinates” for current employees, cross-referencing transferable skills between departments, and sending an alert for relevant open positions before they’re advertised elsewhere—internally or externally. This kind of approach benefits both employer (potentially reduced lead time and expense in recruiting, and a custom-matched fit for the job) and employee (the goodwill in being approached intentionally for a specific job, the intrinsic benefits of a positive lateral or upward move). It’s no surprise that most managers have been happy to rest on the laurels of basic recruiting practices and rely on the short-term goal-making in their technology. Managers are responsible for as many as 10, 20, even 30 or more positions in the organization at any given time, and juggling them and their related key performance indicators (KPIs) is energy-intensive. Managers may also be hesitant to identify people in their own departments who would be good candidates for a lateral or upward move to another department. What manager wants to lose their top performers? That means a shift to focusing on talent development and mobility within the organization must be a larger culture change, and won’t happen overnight. To entrench motivation, the interdepartmental movement and optimization of talent itself need to become a KPI for managers. Demonstrated retention results that improve with the boost in employee engagement and loyalty that comes with smart internal mobility should be shared with managers. In larger organizations, a position devoted solely to the identification, evaluation, and analysis, and planning and placement of internal talent makes good sense, as does hand-in-hand investment in data-driven, predictive AI technologies. Managers—even C-suite officials—are often surprised at the breakdown of costs associated with the lose-recruit-train-develop cycle of employees, and how quickly they can skyrocket when employees as a micro-society in your organization are feeling unmotivated or disloyal. The expensive of a devoted management position and the right technology can sometimes pale in comparison. Finally, don’t overlook the recruiting benefits of this kind of approach. Let your candidates know about your company’s internal mobility commitments. Give them real-world, specific examples of how talent was developed within your organization and how it grew the careers of your best employees. You’ll not only foster loyalty, and by extension employee advocacy, you’ll begin to attract top-tier talent for the open positions you do fill externally.