Career Mobility

“Career mobility” refers to employee movement within the course of their professional life. This can take many forms: finding an entirely new job or moving between roles within the same organization. Mobility can also occur in multiple dimensions: upward (getting a promotion), downward (being transferred to a role lower in the hierarchy), or sideways (moving toward a role at the same hierarchical level in a different functional area). Internal mobility (i.e., career mobility occurring within the same organization) has become a high priority for companies. Optimizing it can reduce recruiting costs, give hiring managers a new pool of candidates, and dramatically improve employee development and retention.

Facilitating career mobility can be a culture change for companies, as the biggest obstacles to career mobility are often ingrained in management models (e.g., talent hording, rewards for retention of talent on a specific team). The notion of enterprise talent is an aspiration that many companies struggle to realize