A Complete Guide About Internal Mobility & Best Practices That Will Help You To Scale Up Your Business

In today's hypercompetitive world, many business leaders are realizing the fact that the best talent lies within their organization. Strong internal mobility within the company can help one to upscale without hiring new talent. According to the data revealed by the Global Human Capital Trends report in 2019, companies found that internal mobility improves employee engagement by 32%. The number is increasing with each passing year and internal mobility is becoming more and more important. 

Internal mobility is a process of upskilling the current employees and preparing them for higher positions. Recently, it has become one of the most important ways of recruitment and talent development. However, executing the task requires a robust strategy and thorough knowledge. This article will help you to know everything related to internal mobility from basics to importance to how you can implement it. Keep reading. 

What Do You Mean By Internal Mobility? 

In simple words, internal mobility means scaling the skills of in-house team members and helping them to reach new roles. It mainly includes two major types namely horizontal mobility (moving from one position to another within the same level) and vertical mobility (moving from one position to higher position). Both these types of mobilities happen within the organization itself. 

Internal mobility is one of the best and cost-effective ways that help a company to fill new positions with the in-house team. Even if an employee is hired for a particular job role (say, Human resource manager), it does not mean that they cannot progress from their current position to the higher one by improving their skills. Organizations who want to be at the forefront of the competition need to explore internal mobility in earnest. 

Even though many companies are finding internal mobility beneficial, they are unaware of how to do it well. Recent study states that only 6% of the respondents say that the organization executed the internal mobility excellently whereas 16% considered it as inadequate. What's even more, 49% of the respondents said that the company lacks the process of identifying and moving employees to the higher positions. 45% of them even said that employees were not having enough visibility about the internal positions. 

What Are The Benefits Of Internal Mobility For Business & Employees? 

Business owners who wish to improve their business growth and hedge against the competition are prioritizing internal mobility. The reason is that internal mobility improves the way business owners use the skill set of the in-house workforce. Using the right approach towers the mobility will not only help business owners to bring the cost down for hiring new people but also keep the skilled workforce engaged. 

As per the PwC’s Millennials at Work report, 52% of employees get attracted towards a company that offers opportunities for career progression. Besides, 35% of respondents ensured that they want to work with companies who offer excellent training and development programmes for their growth. Hence, these high statistics prove that offering internal growth opportunities will not only help the company to reach their organizational goals but also attract a skilled team. 

Let's break down how internal mobility can help your business. 

• Improved retention rate as internal mobility ensures the employees that the company is investing in their career growth. 
• Training and development offered by the company boost the employee engagement and motivate them to perform better. 
• Finding the right employees to fill different positions within your company helps you to lower the cost and need for finding hires outside. 

Best Practices To Execute Internal Mobility In Your Company

If you're planning to execute internal mobility in your organization successfully, here are a few best practices you can adopt.

• Empower Human Resource Manager

The human resource management team plays a vital role in executing the task of internal mobility successfully. That is why it's crucial to start the process by educating and empowering your managers. You need to make them understand how they can spot the right employees in addition to encouraging them to boost their skills. The role of managers is to find the employees who have the spirit to upskill. Once they know the right ones, they can upskill them and fill the vacant positions to serve the company better.

• Audit The Skills Of In-House Team

If you wish to truly include internal mobility, you need to prioritize the auditing of skills. Running an organization means you're currently having hundreds or thousands of employees on-board. Auditing their skills will help you to understand what skills each team member owns. This will eventually help you to fill up the gaps in the organization in the later period.

• Create Internal Talent Marketplace 

Another way for internal mobility is by creating the internal talent marketplace. Whenever a job position becomes vacant, businesses start finding new employees on different platforms. However, this shouldn't be the case. Internal marketplace will help the managers to audit the skills each team member possesses. Each time a job position becomes vacant, the team manager can look into the marketplace and find if any in-house team member holds the same skills. Having an internal talent marketplace will help the managers choose the right employee from within the organization.

• Build A Culture

To create an internal mobility process, it's vital to build a culture that allows skill sharing and talent development. When an organization offers learning and growing opportunities to the in-house team members, it attracts employees and boosts retention rate. Not only will this broaden the skillset of the workforce but will also motivate them to meet the organizational goals.

Final Words 

Internal mobility does not just mean filling the vacant positions. Instead it's an approach that helps to lower the cost you spend on finding new employees, build a strong and skillful in-house team and retain your existing staff. When done rightfully, internal mobility can help you build a strong relationship with your employees and ensure that they work hard to help your business meet its organizational goals. In a nutshell, internal mobility is a win-win situation for your business as well as your existing employees.