Expand your mobility mindset

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: talent mobility is about so much more than promoting high performers. 

That conventional definition of mobility is the tunnel vision view. It’s far too narrow for its adherents to see any of the benefits that come with embracing the concept as a whole. Promotions, otherwise known as upward mobility, are just a piece of the puzzle. Take a step back, identify the others, and we can put it all together.

You see, true mobility is all about possibility. It’s about opportunity. It’s about options. It’s about giving our people the freedom and the support they need to chart their own paths and build their own futures. Naturally, it takes a lot of different forms.

Sometimes, mobility is quite literal. It can mean allowing our employees to go remote, or move and work from a location somewhere else in the country or on the globe.

Sometimes, mobility is about trying new things. It can mean providing our workers with opportunities to move around the company laterally, to other teams or business lanes where they can switch paths and expand their skill sets.

Sometimes, mobility fits that classic definition of promotion. Our best people should get the chance to keep on moving up, building their careers in the process (if that is what they want, remember, not everyone wants to manage). 

Now that we have a better understanding of mobility in all its guises, let’s talk about the why. That is, why should we allow our employees to move up and around? Why is internal mobility so important anyway?

The answer to both of those questions is simple: internal mobility helps people stay.

Employees don’t sign up for jobs so they can tread water in them forever, doing the same things, in the same place, in the same role. They are people, and that means their desires and career goals are ever-changing. They want to live a life and work a job that fits them. They want to learn new skills. They want to keep their career moving forward. 

If we can’t make that happen for them, they will leave and find an organization that will. On the other hand, if we think big and expand our mobility mindset, our best people will have no reason to do anything but stay.