Internal mobility: 7 steps to succeed in 2025

Everything you need to know about implementing internal mobility, from its definition to its aspects... What is internal mobility?

Whether for employers or for employees, internal mobility is a important strategy human resources. However, it should not be confused with external mobility.

If the first refers to the Change of position of an employee within a company, the second allows an employee to postulate in another establishment.

Upstream, you may have difficulty defining your needs, so use the predictive management of jobs and skills method (GPEC) developed by the French State to help you.

Internal mobility is a strategy that should not be overlooked since it has numerous advantages. Indeed, in the event that you are in need of candidates, you may be likely to offer the position to one of your collaborators.

This process will allow you to remember and retain talent in your business, but also of reduce your recruitment costs. It is also an opportunity for you to attract the best profiles since you offer career opportunities.

In this article, we will give you five levers to ensure a successful internal mobility in 2024.

1 - Define the internal framework

A first point, which is more than effective, is to define your internal framework. To achieve this, consider develop your relationships with your managers. Indeed, it is your team leaders who work with employees on a daily basis. They are therefore in the best position to understand the performance and career expectations of employees. Afterwards, they can provide you with advice on an individual's professional perspective.

However, you should know that it exists three types of mobility within a company.

In fact, it can be either:

• Verticale : to a hierarchically higher or lower position (very rare) within the same company. In these types of cases, this means that the employee often faces a promotion or transfer to a higher-ranking role. Professionally, he is offered various development opportunities. It promotes a positive work environment and employee motivation.

• Horizontal : to a position at the same hierarchical level but with different tasks and responsibilities within the same company. It allows employees to discover new perspectives. This is a real challenge for talent; it is not an easy task to adapt to a completely new role. For the company as well, in terms of planning.

• Geographical : keep your post but in another place. It can be stressful and complicated for the employee at the beginning but it will allow them to get to know different cultures, places and people. It can be voluntary or imposed: it can be legitimate for employees looking for a position in a specific region. It must be managed carefully and transparently to meet the needs of the company and those of the employees at the same time.

Diagram representing the 3 types of internal mobility

To complete the framework, remember to define your implementation methods, by asking yourself questions such as: “how do I broadcast my ad?”,”How do I set up my interviews with candidates?” or even”What selection criteria should I attach the most importance to?”.

Our advice: write an internal mobility charter to guarantee maximum transparency about your internal mobility policy.

2 - Encourage exchanges between teams

A second point (often forgotten) to promote your mobility process, consists of encourage exchanges within your teams and between them. Employees can then establish relationships with each other in different departments and understand the different jobs that make up your organization and in turn discover the internal mobility opportunities available.

In addition to improving human relationships, this technique will allow everyone to obtain a more global vision business processes.

Our advice : set up a routine for presenting the various jobs and missions of the company at a precise pace such as once a month with a defined window. By participating at this point, your employees will be able to take turns presenting their daily life, their missions and their activities to their colleagues.

Establishing a presentation ritual is equivalent to promoting exchange

You can also choose an option that is more practical from a logistical point of view by documenting the various divisions that make up you in writing. Thanks to this knowledge, an employee could perfectly find out about another field and discover a particular interest in it.

The company Michel and Augustin made a slightly more original choice.

Indeed, for several years, it has been offering CAP Pastry training to fifteen volunteer employees. Therefore, different services intersect and can discover each other during their apprenticeship. In-house training is also a good way to promote your employer brand.

If you want to know more, we consulted close to 69 experts in order to obtain the keys to a attractive employer brand.

By downloading this free guide you will get:

• Feedback from 69 employer brand specialists
• The 4 main attractiveness factors
• Recommendations by type of business

Download the free HR guide: How to boost your attractiveness?

3 - Communicate about available positions

Communication is a technique without which the internal mobility process cannot be successful. You need to devote as much energy to it as you did to the previous two points.

It is important to make it available, clear and specific to encourage participation.

This is why you have to think about the ease of access to information in order to hope to create emulation. Hence the importance of giving a dedicated web space internally as well as externally or to define an effective communication channel to reach the whole of society.

Our tip: if you use a corporate messaging system such as Slack or Teams, a channel dedicated to internal mobility can be very effective in promoting your internal mobility (or at least arouse interest in another very popular technique: co-optation).

4 - Detect the potential of employees

A large number of organizations have set up a annual evaluation interview system. While these are generally intended to set goals to be achieved, they also make it possible to assess employees in their current position based on their knowledge and experience.

In addition, it is not necessarily easy to know whether or not the employee who wants to change jobs meets the needs of your job offer. It is therefore a very useful tool for detecting the abilities of your employees.

However, there is another category of tools to help you objectively assess the potential of an employee: theAssessment Center. It is a competency assessment method based on Situation.

With the rise of digitalization and gamification, tools that are more fun and simple to implement have emerged.

After several years of R&D with researchers in Psychology and Neuroscience, we imagined Yuzu : one New Generation Assessment Center, specialized in the assessment of soft skills (the famous soft skills).

With Yuzu, talents are immersed in scenarios developed with the latest technologies of the Video game.

The evaluations, on the other hand, are accessible to all profiles thanks to simplified orders and cloud technologies (all you need is a computer and an internet connection to be evaluated).

Detect the potential of your employees with Yuzu

The advantages of our solution:

• One candidate experience exceptional for boosting your employer brand;
• A solution accessible to all to ensure equal opportunities;
• A decision support tool to detect and promote interpersonal skills.

Whether it's for your recruitment process or internal mobility, we are transforming the assessment of Soft Skills In a moment Loud and playful.

To capitalize on this strategy for detecting potential, you can for example organize a Fun skills assessment day for all your teams or take advantage of tools with simple logistics such as Yuzu, so that your employees can assess themselves whenever they want, from their computer.

5 - Follow employees in their new position

When your collaborator is promoted, you have a Real support challenge for your internal mobility to be effective. Indeed, he will discover new activities and new colleagues. It is therefore important to prepare for integration into the new team and to support them in carrying out their new tasks.

In this sense, some companies choose a gradual change, that is, maintaining some of the employee's old duties until complete acclimatization to the new position. Generally, in terms of duration, the transition takes place between 4 and 6 months.

This change can allow for a better job.

Training is also a solution to support a new position to be taken into consideration in order to help talent better adapt to their new role. One Yuzu skills assessment could for example guide you on suitable training courses in order to perfect the skills of the promoted employee.

6 - What to do if internal mobility goes wrong?

Despite all the resources used to ensure your internal mobility, some unexpected events may occur.

For example, the employee may regret his wish, which is why a probationary period should always be put in place.

The probationary period is essential for your successful internal mobility

This can allow the employee, if the probationary period is unsatisfactory, to return to his previous position. It is also a two-way advantage since it allows the employer to reconsider their choice.

However, be aware that if this situation was not anticipated in the employment contract of the principal concerned, then an amendment must be made. In addition, in the event that the employee is said” sheltered ”, his agreement will be mandatory to go back. Otherwise, he will remain in office or you will need to obtain administrative authorization for dismissal.

7 - Conduct an audit of your internal mobility

If you have already set up an internal mobility process in your company, it is important to maintain it and make it evolve if necessary. This is why it is essential to carry out an audit of your internal mobility to obtain valuable feedback on your approach.

Therefore, review your data in terms of promotions, transfers and transfers of employees. For example, you can conduct questionnaires for employees who have experienced a change of position in your company, or organize dedicated interviews. Thanks to this, you could understand exactly how your employees perceived their own mobility.

Without this, it is impossible to detect some problems

You will thus improve your human capital management by objectively managing your internal mobility policy.

To remember

The world of recruitment is in constant evolution, you just have to see how the Gamification has progressed in recent years. It is therefore important to adapt to the desires of the new generations by integrating internal mobility into your HR strategy. It is a guideline that can help you recruit and maintain your talents.

However, to ensure its success, it is essential to integrate 7 steps that you may have read in this article. From the definition of your framework to the analysis of your approach. All these practices are complementary, take advantage of them to extract as much value as possible from each of them.

Finally, internal mobility concerns the entire company, so this approach must be approached in a global way: from the human resources department, to talent, including managers and managers. To assist you, do not hesitate to assess the motivation of your employees and their transversal skills: Soft Skills.

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