Elevating Employee Careers: A Four-Lever Approach to Internal Growth without Formal Mobility
Employee mobility is viewed as one of the key modern employee value propositions as they enhance the employees’ vertical or transversal career paths in the organization or even outside. Companies with strong internal mobility have employees who are are 3.5 times more likely to be engaged and 27% more likely to go the extra mile (sounds like Cultivators!).
But what does someone do in an organization that thrives on stability and has low turnover rates? How do we make sure that our best employees are enabled to sustain and navigate fulfilling career pathways seamlessly without formally moving to a new role or without looking for external avenues and opportunities? While stability is often seen as a positive, it can also be an indication to lack of progress if employees don't recognize opportunities for growth and advancement within their existing roles. Therefore, the need to create internal structures that provide the vitality and challenge normally linked with formal moves.
Having just spent time at SIOP session on these dynamics, I felt super motivated that there are actually myriad ways we can promote career development, skill development, and motivation of employees without formal mobility, and I think there are four key levers we should consider when doing so.
The Four Levers
This model focuses on strategies to cultivate employee growth and satisfaction within their existing roles, offering alternatives to traditional career advancement through job changes.
Communicate Expectations that Reinforce a High-Performing Culture
While our situation assumes low turnover, it's vital to dissect the drivers of the right kind of attrition – voluntarily leaving a company is driven by individuals seeking new challenges that genuinely don't align with the organization's future, rather than dissatisfaction. Voluntary attrition can come in a few different flavors: formally announced (as we’ve seen at Google earlier this year), or informally driven based on clearly communicated expectations (as we saw at Google in 2023 when they announced their Return to Office policy).
I always like looking at talent challenges first from a lens of performance and setting clear expectations. And this one is a great time to make sure we’re getting employees aligned on our strategy, the skills we expect from them, and the results we expect. Just this week, Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke stole headlines when he set clear expectations that all employees need to be using AI and that any desire to hire humans has to first justify why AI can’t do it.
As Brené Brown always says, “clear is kind,” and ensuring we’re standing up for the performance expectations we have is a great first lever.
Launch Creative, Intrapreneurial Development Programs
When I led our creative engagement efforts at Johnson & Johnson, one of my favorite offerings was our Wake ‘Em Up, Shake ‘Em Up program, offered to all employees who’d been in their current role for three years. During these sessions, we’d expose people to the latest business strategy, industry trends, and emerging tech, then encourage people to rip up their job description and reimagine how to add the most value to the organization from their seat.
This was the beginning of what led me to five years of empowerment research, and was instrumental in that pursuit because we saw how to empower employees within existing structures and goals to see massive outcomes. For many participants, even though technically they didn’t move jobs, they had a completely different perception of their job overnight and they showed up doing different work, applying different skills, and bringing new forms of value.
“You have a new job every day,” was a slogan that really stuck for people because they know every day presents new challenges, and we were giving them the permission and abilities to rethink how they did that work. The fundamental idea is to adopt a mindset of continuous learning and job progression, where employees see each day as a fresh start for their work within the same organization.
Marketplaces, Gigs, Development Calendar
These are all the rage right now, and for good reason. Over 30% of large enterprises now have a talent marketplace, empowering employees to take on gigs for x% of their time, and so while they don’t officially have a new role, they are spending time on a different organizational challenge and building new skills while staying inside the company.
One of the best things talent teams can do is create the right, flexible internal policies and programs such as job swaps, shadowing programs, mentorship and coaching, and internal development programs that support people in-role. Internal coaching programs provide a multi-dimensional value stream because it builds skills in coaching for more senior employees, builds confidence and career planning for more junior employees, and builds organizational commitment for both.
Chevron leads a practice annually where all employees know there is one time per year when the vast majority of internal moves happen, and this is a practice that works well for them because there are clear expectations around mobility, and for the rest of the year people are focused on their work and other development activities as opposed to constantly applying for roles.
External Development Opportunities
The fourth lever focuses on letting employees expand their prospects with external exposure. This allows employees to learn and grow outside their current roles while still remaining employed at your company. This can include short-term assignments with sister companies, secondments, support for external advisory committees, participation in conferences and workshops, allowing employee involvement through voluntary activities, and other non-traditional ways to develop skills outside of their current roles.
Many companies already have formal opportunities through their corporate social responsibility groups that just aren’t formally tied to the talent groups. That’s one of my favorite relationships to strengthen. What if you formally encouraged board participation? (We did this with a recent leadership development program where a group of 30 VP’s were all matched with a local start-up or non-profit organization where they had to serve on their boards, and we debriefed the experiences. 100% reported growth of new skills through this experience.)
What if you facilitated a novel swap with another organization in your industry or geography? These are the kind of creative solutions that companies are working on right now and they offer unique ways for employees to grow beyond the confines of their daily tasks.
It is indeed possible to have a healthy development culture even when there are few formal role move opportunities. It’s about changing mindsets and fostering a culture of continuous learning. The more we nurture a high-performing culture, empower talent to innovation in-role, develop internal mechanisms for skill development, and grant external exposure… the more we see career development for all. By implementing these methods, companies can this turn low employee turnover “challenge” into a competitive edge, and bring about an environment where skilled individuals thrive and advance their careers.
Cultivate empowers organizations to not just adapt to change, but to lead in shaping the future of work. Let us help you build a culture of empowerment and innovation now — send us a message.
