The staffing shortage has caused instability in the talent acquisition trends. HR and hiring professionals are looking for alternatives to support their organizational recruitment milestones. This lack of qualified talent pool has altered the ways how recruitment and hiring used to progress. Instead of candidates following up on their applications, recruiters now follow the potential talent to make them land a position in the company. With such a challenging situation prevailing around, exploring internal mobility options can do wonders. Internal mobility is in the best interests of both the recruiters as well as employees. It provides both parties to benefit and grow without looking outside of the organization. let’s briefly discuss what exactly internal mobility is.
Internal Mobility
Internal mobility is the growth, opportunities, and positive learning gradient of employees without having to switch their organizations. Employees feel encouraged to explore and update their skills. Consequently, the employees who deem fit are promoted to new and better job functions internally. Internal mobility is beneficial for recruiters since they do not have to advertise a vacancy on job portals and other media. Similarly, the associated fiscal resources, time, and efforts are also directed elsewhere for improved productivity and performance.
Internal mobility is also beneficial for employees since it gives them motivation for perpetual performance and learning. Consequently, they continue to move up the rankings in the same company. Similarly, the employees do not have to deal with the hassle of exploring and digging for new and better job opportunities in the market. Since their company is offering all the growth and promotions, employees don’t have to deal with the nuisance of switching.
According to Protiviti, “succession challenges, ability to attract and retain top talent” remains the second greatest global risk in 2022. Incorporating internal mobility within the organization empowers you to deal with this risk effectively. By creatively constructing an internal mobility model to encourage employees to grow, you can expand your talent pool significantly. The extended talent pool allows recruiters to find just the right candidate for specific job functions.
What are the types of internal mobility?
Internal mobility is the professional growth of employees and workers within the same workplace. The way this growth takes place leads to different models of internal mobility. Mobility is either lateral or vertical depending upon the transition.
Lateral/Horizontal Mobility
Lateral mobility is often called function-to-function mobility. In this model, the employees switch from one department to another independent department. Employees who qualify for lateral mobility are usually those with sufficiently high expertise in their job functions. In order for them to grow, they usually switch to expand their skillset. A content writer with strong experience can switch to an SEO expert and subsequently become an SEO specialist – content writer.
Internal recruitment with lateral mobility does not also have to include a promotion or salary raise. The motive behind lateral mobility is to let employees grow professionally. Ranks and job hierarchies are of secondary importance in this case of internal recruitment.
Relocations
A Relocation or a transfer is a transition in the job role which is prompted by either the employer or the employee. The basic goal with transfers is to deal with the sudden change in the organizational structure. The internal mobility associated with relocations is once again not associated with an upgrade in the pay scale of job title of the employees. However, there are still a number of benefits of relocations. When it comes to employers, they can benefit from relocating their employees to a more important project/role without hiring new employees. Hence, the cost of hiring and onboarding is avoided in pursuit of achieving organizational milestones.
Vertical/Upward Mobility
Now, this is the nature of internal mobility that is associated with a promotion in job titles as well as an increment in the pay scales. Vertical mobility, as the name suggests, occurs when employees have demonstrated sufficient expertise so as to assume the charge. For instance, a graphic designer with sufficient experience promotes to Head of Marketing. Now the role embodies greater responsibilities and deliverables.
Encouraging vertical mobility within the organization helps organizations especially when it comes to recruiting. Talent acquisition teams do not have to look outside to assign important roles in the company. Recruiting internal applicants makes it easy to communicate the nature, responsibilities, and expectations of the new job role. Similarly, the company does not have to share its top-tier information/practices with outsiders in pursuit of filling senior job roles.
The collateral benefits of vertical mobility are significant. Employee satisfaction rate, retention rates, productivity index, and employee fulfillment ratio are just the tip of the iceberg. One of the most crucial benefits of vertical mobility is that employees feel valued at the workplace. This recognition of their efforts improves their morale and they strive to perform better. This induces a positive working mindset in all the employees. The acknowledgment of their efforts by offering them vertical mobility, in turn, reciprocates in terms of employee loyalty and productivity.
Functional Mobility
Functional mobility occurs when multiple teams get together to achieve a common organizational milestone. Members of various departments form a cross-functional team to deliver a shared output. Every member owns a specific function and gives his/her input in the team. This kind of internal mobility allows the employees to grow beyond their dedicated roles. Employees have opportunities to learn from other members belonging to different departments. Hence employees learn from a wide range of diversified perspectives in such a functional team.
In the nutshell, internal mobility within an organization enables the recruiters to broaden the pool of talented candidates in the staffing shortage era. Internal recruitment lets the HR and hiring teams concentrate their efforts on picking the best talent from within the organization. Consequently, additional costs of external hires are avoided and time-to-hire is also reduced significantly. Irrespective of the nature of internal mobility, internal recruitment is encouraged to make the most out of your existing staff.
