Far too often, career progress is thought of as being strictly vertical. Employees go straight up the corporate ladder – or leave a company altogether. But it’s time to think more laterally, literally.
Mobility in the workplace goes well beyond the linear path of a promotion; internal mobility is a major source of career development and growth, and can include lateral moves like transfers, secondments, and temporary project assignments.
In the wake of the ‘great resignation’, many employers are considering how they can better retain and support existing staff. According to the ABS, more than 1.3 million Australians switched jobs in the year leading up to February 2023, including almost one in four professionals (24%) – the highest job mobility rate in a decade.
While hiring has slowed due to economic pressures, this hasn’t necessarily translated to a focus on internal mobility. Australians are still more likely to look for an external role than an internal one.
Harnessing talent from within
Internal mobility benefits employees and organisations alike. It allows recruitment teams to find the best person for the role within the business, improving retention and supporting employee engagement. This can give a much-needed boost to the overall culture and, practically, keep existing knowledge and high-quality talent within the organisation. At the same time, internal mobility offers employees growth, helping them to advance their career, develop skills and enjoy new experiences.
Added cost savings bring extra value to the existing benefits of internal mobility. Just consider everything that goes into hiring – from listing job ads to lengthy interviews and onboarding, the average cost to hire an employee adds up. Replacing high-potential talent can even cost a business up to three times the cost of the former employee’s salary, not only due to hiring and onboarding costs but also lost productivity and poor engagement. Hiring internally saves on this and can boost the bottom line further.
Our past research found 77% of high-performing companies were those which have improved employee retention, compared to 45% of all others. Meanwhile, other research indicates that organisations with high levels of engagement report higher profitability and higher productivity than those with low engagement levels. We perform better at work when we feel better – this boost in engagement goes a long way for the business!
Enabling internal mobility in your organisation
More and more, businesses are increasing their investment in internal mobility. But while they recognise its value, this doesn’t always translate to change. It’s essential that organisations look to their existing employees as growth-driven individuals rather than static entities. Unfortunately, almost half of surveyed employees (43%) don’t feel they have enough opportunities to move and grow within their current place of work.
Here are three reasons that could be holding back internal mobility in an organisation– and how to overcome them:
- Poor internal experiences
More Australians look outside their workplace than within it for opportunities. Too often, this is due to roadblocks that make internal processes difficult.
In 2023, Apt itude Research found that 58% of internal candidates went through the same process as external candidates. Employers should recognise internal candidates for what they are: existing team members, not new ones.
Processes should be simpler and more straightforward than when dealing with external candidates. No one wants to go through five rounds of interviews with their current employer! Consider what could be unnecessarily complex in these situations, especially for shorter term moves like secondments and project assignments. How can this process be simplified? Sometimes it’s small switches, like culling some of the fields in a form to reduce the burden on the applicant. The more straightforward, the better.
- Role, rather than skill-based, thinking
Almost all (95%) of companies surveyed by Aptitude Research said skills are more important than job titles when promoting employees. Yet organisations are frequently limited by searching for candidates with a specific title – especially for lateral, cross department transfers.
Taking a skills-based approach means prioritising the capabilities of an employee over their specific experience. This enables much more lateral movement as it recognises that an employee might be a great fit for a role despite never working in that specific field.
One of the most important actions businesses can take to prepare for increased internal mobility is acquiring and storing skills information, through tools such as Workday’s Skills Cloud. This, when used with a talent marketplace, gives employers a full picture of their workforce’s capabilities and gives employees a view of their potential career paths within an organisation.
- Lack of visible opportunities
Frequently, employees don’t even know opportunities are there! This is why an internal talent marketplace is vital. With an internal talent marketplace, workers know there is a clear way to look for new positions in their company. What’s more, this sends the message that moving internally is encouraged.
An internal talent marketplace creates a centralised place for employees to look for roles and HR teams and managers to understand the existing range of talent within the business. At Workday, we believe the success of an internal talent marketplace depends on how it harnesses skills data and machine learning.
Leveraging machine learning and data helps to improve everything from the quality of the skills data being used to the ability to access that data about a worker’s desires and capabilities from other sources. It helps employees and their organisations gain insight into the skills they currently have and where they can focus their efforts on reskilling or upskilling, if needed.
HR teams are in a powerful position to not only advocate for internal mobility but shape the internal processes and guidelines that enable it. With a considered, strategic approach backed by technology, organisations and their employees can move in all directions and see the benefits.
Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
