2 Companies That Are Getting Internal Mobility Right

The more things change (we’re looking at you, AI), the more they stay the same, particularly for companies that want to keep top talent. That’s why, even in a rapidly evolving work environment, organizations are still trying to figure out internal mobility, so that employees will stay.

We heard this sentiment echoed across panels at Talent Connect 2023 — and for good reason. Internal mobility offers many benefits, including increased retention, engagement, and agility, as well as reduced cost and time of hiring. According to LinkedIn data, employees at companies with high rates of internal mobility stay 60% longer than those at companies with low rates of internal mobility.

At a time when skills are changing quickly, this matters more than ever. Our research shows that the skills required for jobs have changed 25% since 2015 and that number is expected to reach at least 65% by 2030, in part because of new technologies like AI. What’s more, the Financial Services Skills Commission found that it’s 2.5x more expensive to hire a new employee than reskill a current one. 

So how can companies create a culture where employees look for their next role within the company rather than taking valuable skills elsewhere? 

“I think the main thing is intentionality,” said Rebecca Romano, senior vice president and head of global talent development at NBCUniversal, during one breakout session. “If you’re sitting in a talent planning room, you’re looking at great talent and asking, ‘What’s next for them? How can they develop and how can we, as an organization, make that happen?’ That’s the unlock — the decoder ring we’re all looking for.” 

To find that decoder ring (or get close), let’s look at two companies featured at Talent Connect that are getting internal mobility right.  

NBCUniversal: Creating a culture of “access” for employees to look internally

Among the biggest barriers to internal mobility: Employees don’t always feel comfortable speaking with managers about new opportunities and managers can be reluctant to let great talent go. “Putting learning programs in place and creating career pathways doesn’t work,” Rebecca told a Talent Connect audience, “unless there’s a culture of access and leaders to support it and give it permission.” 

That’s why NBCUniversal has worked hard to cultivate connections and access to internal opportunities, starting with its  “Meet Your Recruiters” panels, which were created to make talent acquisition more accessible to employees, facilitate internal mobility, and empower employees to grow in their careers. The panels, which are typically offered virtually and in-person once a quarter, cover topics such as employee referrals and the internal application process, and include one-on-one meetings with recruiters afterward. 

Meanwhile, NBCUniversal launched another program called Hot Jobs, as a pilot for its Operations and Technology business. It’s since grown to include several other business lines like Direct-To-Consumer and NBC Sports. The talent team sends out a monthly Hot Jobs newsletter to the entire business, alerting employees to open roles, referring them to the internal career site, and asking for referrals for roles, such as software engineers and product managers, in the pipeline.

“Hot Jobs has been a great initiative,” said Suzan Vulaj, NBCUniversal’s VP of global talent acquisition, “to get in front of the employees, create awareness of our internal opportunities, and demystify the internal application process.” The listings include the names of the recruiter, links to their email address, the hiring manager contact information, and the location of the job.  

Finally, because employees often need skills to move into a new job, the Talent Lab, NBCUniversal’s corporate university, offers Career Core Labs, half-day virtual or in-person labs that provide career development tools and deepen business acumen so employees can navigate their next career move within or across NBCU’s portfolio of businesses. So far, the company has held 65 of these labs for 3,500 employees. 

How is all of this working? In the most recent annual survey, employees were asked whether they believed their manager would be supportive of them making a move internally. A whopping 81% said yes.  

Schneider Electric: Working on skills-based internal mobility to tackle retention 

In 2019, Schneider Electric — which has 140,000 employees worldwide — wanted to solve its retention problem. “It was easier to leave Schneider and get rehired,” said Jean Pelletier, Schneider’s vice president of digital talent transformation and global talent acquisition, “than to find a job within the company.” 

So the energy management company launched a talent marketplace, Open Talent Market, that allowed employees to find internal roles. Schneider workers entered their business titles and the marketplace used AI to match those titles to new roles, gigs, and mentorships. Employees were thrilled. So far, 85,000 have registered. 

But managers? Not so much. “I have answered a number of calls from managers who’ve said, ‘You need to shut this down,’” Jean said. The talent team persisted, with the idea that managers’ mindsets would follow. 

As part of this effort, the talent team updated the marketplace to focus on skills and created a skills management team to oversee the shift to skills-first. This team researched transferable skills and found that, among other things, Schneider’s financial analysts had 50% of the skills needed to be a data analyst — which meant people could be moved across functions. 

Around the same time, the team began working on a skills taxonomy, to help with both internal and external hiring. “The first thing we discovered is we have a zillion taxonomies in our organization,” Jean said. “Global supply chain does their own. Finance does its own. Rewards does its own.” So Schneider formed a skills management initiative, with the intent of bringing together the talent, rewards, and learning teams to create a common language — an effort that sounds a lot easier than it actually was. 

It’s slow-going but it’s paying off. Eighty-five percent of eligible employees have registered in the Open Talent Market, making it much easier to find a job within Schneider now. This year alone, 1,500 employees “were given visibility” to more than 14,000 open roles. On top of that, 4,000 employees have found mentors and 3,000 employees have worked on internal gig projects. 

Final thoughts: The goal should be progress, not perfection

If one thing was clear at Talent Connect, it’s that no company has (fully) aced internal mobility. When Schneider first launched its marketplace, for example, they used business titles instead of skills to match people to jobs because their system wasn’t yet set up to handle skills. When they tried to get the learning and rewards teams together to work on a skills taxonomy, it took an entire year. 

“We realized that if we waited for our internal infrastructure to be perfect, we’d never get there,” Jean said. “We’ve definitely learned things and made mistakes along the way. But we started it, and just embraced progress, not perfection.”