Internal Mobility Is Booming — But Not for Everybody

If you’re a talent professional, you’ve probably heard the recent buzz around internal mobility. (For those who don’t already know, internal mobility is when an employee moves to a new job within the same company.) 

Why is internal mobility getting so much more attention lately? In short, it’s being recognized as an underutilized way to fill open positions — especially at a time when hiring is still slow in some key sectors, like technology. It’s also a strong tool to promote retention while keeping employees engaged (perhaps allaying some fears of “quiet quitting” and “the big stay”). 

Buzz is one thing. But are companies actually turning to internal mobility more than in years prior? The answer, according to new LinkedIn data, is a resounding yes.

This article is coauthored by senior insights analyst Adriana Zurbano.

Internal mobility rates (that is, the percentage of all employees who changed job titles while staying at the same company) rose significantly over the past few years. The average rate grew from 18.7% in 2021 to 24.4% in 2023; that’s an absolute increase of 5.7 percentage points (as 18.7 + 5.7 = 24.4), and a relative increase of +30% (as 24.4 is 30% larger than 18.7). 

The lesson: If your company isn’t increasingly focused on internal mobility, you may already be falling behind your competitors. 

And while internal mobility is rising broadly, certain types of employees are far more likely to make an internal move than others.  

Let’s take a closer look at which workers are more inclined to make an internal move — and which skills they tend to develop just before changing roles. 

Managers and higher-ups are twice as likely to make an internal move 

The biggest demographic factor that predicted internal mobility isn’t a member’s gender or their generation — it’s their seniority, by a wide margin.

While individual contributors have an average internal mobility rate of around 24%, managers and directors (and higher) have around a 50% internal mobility rate — over twice the rate of the individuals working under them. 

Interestingly, LinkedIn data only revealed minor differences across binary genders or generations. Globally, men (27%) had a slightly higher internal mobility than women (23%). Similarly, across the three biggest generations in today’s global workforce, Gen X (27%) and Millennials (26%) had slightly higher rates than Gen Z (23%). 

Here’s the takeaway for talent pros: The higher-ups have internal mobility pretty well figured out, but there’s a clear opportunity for more individual contributors to make internal moves. Look to your leadership for best practices to emulate, and work to ensure your company culture encourages mobility for all employees — not just those in the middle and at the top. 

Fortunately, things are already moving in that direction: the internal mobility rate for individual contributors was just 18.5% in 2021 (a relative increase of +30%), while rates for managers stagnated over the same period, and rates for directors and above actually shrunk by 8%, as of late 2023. 

Internal movers tend to develop collaborative and inclusive skills more often than external movers

Finally, let’s consider what skills people tend to learn prior to making an internal move. 

By comparing what skills members added to their profiles in the 12 months before starting their new role, we can see that internal movers are far more likely to develop certain skills than their peers who left the company.

Interestingly, the skills that best predict internal movers revolve around collaboration, inclusion, and adaptability — the abilities to connect with coworkers, make everyone feel included, and drive change on an organizational scale. 

If you’re trying to improve internal mobility and retention, these are the skills you’ll want to look for in internal and external candidates who you hope will grow with the company. You might also encourage internal mobility by helping existing employees gain these skills through learning and development. 

Final thoughts

Internal mobility is booming, but not for everyone: While managers and higher-ups have plenty of opportunities, individual contributors may face more challenges. Talent pros should take note of this gap and work to close it by creating a more inclusive and equitable internal mobility culture. 

That means providing more visibility and support for internal job openings, encouraging cross-functional collaboration and mentoring, and recognizing and rewarding employees who make successful internal transitions. It also means looking for and developing the skills — such as diversity and inclusion, emotional intelligence, and change management — that internal movers tend to develop. These skills may not only help employees move internally, but help them thrive in the changing world of work. 

By investing in internal mobility, talent pros can help their companies and employees grow stronger together. 

Methodology

All data reflects aggregated LinkedIn member activity as of December 2023. We’ve defined current internal mobility as any point at which an employee took a new position at the same company in the last 12 months ending December 2023. Historical internal mobility rates for 2022 and 2021 include data from January to December of those years. To calculate internal mobility rates, we included only companies with at least 75 transitions and calculated the median rate. 

We analyzed career movers who made an internal or external move in 2023 and identified explicit skills that were developed up to 12 months prior to their move dates, excluding Microsoft products skills. We then calculated the odds ratio to measure the difference in the share of employees with skills between internal and external movers and identify skills that internal movers are more likely to have than external movers. The above is based on 2023 data and the list of skills was filtered for at least 10,000 internal movers to ensure that the odds ratio is not driven by a low number of employees with the skill.