Internal Talent Mobility: Enabling Employees to Imagine New Career Trajectories

“Unless my boss dies, there’s no place for me to go. The only place I can go is up within my area; my boss is young and not going anywhere. My career opportunities are limited here.”

These are the words of a talented woman I interviewed some years ago while helping a diverse, international company with their career management process. She perceived her opportunities for career advancement were limited because her vision was pointed in one direction – upward, toward her boss’s job.

Her vision of her career was like a pawn in a chess game that can only move forward, in step-wise fashion. But what if she were like a queen on the chessboard that can move horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, up and down the board? Internal talent mobility is like opening up the chess board to moves in many different directions. It allows employees to move across your company flexibly, in ways that satisfy their need for growth and creativity. And growing, creative employees are more likely to become engaged and to stick around.

It is rare today, but sometimes employees who are allowed to move both horizontally and vertically, to where their talents can thrive,work for one company for their entire careers. Consider the case of Rami Rahim, CEO of Juniper Networks. Rahim recounted the story of his career, and what he had learned from it, in a Fast Company article.

Starting at Juniper in 1997 as an engineer, Rahimmoved horizontally into product management. He then moved vertically, into a general manager role, and then horizontally again to take on other GM positions. In 2014, he made the ultimate vertical move and became CEO.Although cases like Rahim’s are rare, they highlight the value of internal talent mobility for developing leaders from within your company.

Internal talent marketplaces are technology platforms that enable talent mobility. With these tools, managers can post calls for the skills they need tied to specific projects. The platform then matches skills with projects.It offers opportunities for people with those skills to opt-in to a project on a part-time basis, no matter where in the organization they happen to work.

These tools are not just a match game. They provide companies with rich data, yielding insights into the skillsets they have in-house. They’re also great tools for career development since they provide opportunities for employees to learn and grow in the ways that they desire.

These platforms are also capable of showing employees where they need to grow, i.e., what skills they need to develop to move toward the career they envision. Theycan also help employees identify mentors within the organization who can help them achieve their career goals. At best, these tools can also help employees develop acareer trajectory for themselves, imagining previously unforeseen possibilities.

In this article for the Association of Talent Development (ATD), I expanded on the advantages of internal talent mobility and how it can lead employees to have a full and fulfilling career at a single company. Not everyone aspires to rise through the ranks to the C-Suite. But almost everyone wants a successful and rich career. In the ATD article I discuss further how internal talent mobility – aided by a talent mobility platform – can help employees to reach their career goals, and then reach for the stars.