Professional mobility: internal mobility as a driver for transformation
Corporate transformations reshape organisations, jobs and the skills they require. They sometimes mean moving employees into new roles, but they can also open up new career prospects for those who want to take their career in a new direction.
To become a genuine driver for transformation, professional mobility has to connect three realities: the organisation’s future needs, the opportunities available and the skills employees can draw on or develop.
Alixio Group helps you design, roll out and manage professional mobility schemes suited to your context. We help HR departments structure their internal mobility policy, identify possible career paths and support employees all the way to making their move a reality.
Why structure professional mobility in your company?
A company may have substantial skills in-house without managing to deploy them where they are needed. At the same time, employees may want to progress without knowing which jobs are open to them, which career pathways exist or which skills they still need to develop.
Professional mobility brings these needs together: anticipating the company’s requirements, identifying the skills available or still to be developed, and building the most suitable career paths.
It becomes a priority, in particular, to:
- support the transformation or disappearance of certain jobs;
- fill new, critical or hard-to-fill roles;
- organise redeployments as part of a reorganisation;
- retain strategic skills and know-how;
- offer clearer career prospects;
- prepare career changes or geographical moves.
However, an internal mobility policy cannot simply consist of advertising vacancies. It has to set out the ground rules, make opportunities easy to understand and give everyone the means to assess how feasible their plans are.
Professional mobility, internal mobility and redeployment: what are the differences?
Internal mobility is therefore one form of professional mobility. It may be a chosen career move, a career change or a redeployment linked to organisational change. Depending on the gap between the current job and the target job, it may require an assessment, training, job shadowing or support when taking up the new role.
How does Alixio Group support your professional mobility policy?
Our support covers both the overall mobility framework and individual career paths. Linking the two is essential: a scheme only works if it meets the company’s needs while giving employees prospects realistic enough to win their commitment.
Define the mobility policy and its rules
We start by clarifying the scheme’s objectives: anticipating how jobs will change, making internal recruitment easier, supporting a reorganisation, improving employability or preparing geographical moves.
This scoping work defines the employee groups concerned, the roles of HR and managers, the application criteria, the decision-making processes and the monitoring indicators. The result is a scheme that employees can understand and that the teams responsible for running it can actually use.
Identify target jobs and build career pathways
A career pathway is not based solely on how similar two job titles are. It means comparing the activities involved, the transferable skills and the prerequisites of the target job.
Career pathways show the possible transitions between jobs, identify skills gaps and rank moves by how feasible they are and the development actions they require.
They give HR teams practical reference points to guide employees and prioritise the career paths to support.
Assess and support individual plans
Two employees in the same role do not necessarily have the same skills, motivations or constraints.
The individual skills passport gives each employee a clear picture of their skills, experience and employability, so they can identify realistic career options and build their career plan more effectively.
Depending on needs, it can be complemented by a career review, an assessment, the exploration of target jobs or an action plan through to training and taking up the new role.
Measure skills objectively with bespoke assessments
In the context of internal mobility or organisational change, Alixio Group can design bespoke assessment programmes to evaluate employees’ skills against the target jobs or functions.
These assessments give an objective view of strengths and the gaps to close, and help build suitable career paths: training, development, mobility or support when taking up the new role.
Develop skills and ensure a successful start in the new role
A move does not always mean mastering every skill of the target job straight away. You need to distinguish the essential prerequisites from what can be learned along the way.
We help the company build solutions tailored to the gaps identified: training, on-the-job learning, job shadowing, mentoring or individual coaching. These approaches can be combined to strengthen existing skills or prepare a career change.
Our support does not stop at the decision to move. Preparing the new line manager and monitoring the employee’s integration also help turn the move into a lasting success.
A four-step approach
Our approach is tailored to each organisation, but it generally follows four stages.
Scope the challenges
We analyse the strategy, the transformations under way, the jobs concerned and the objectives assigned to the mobility scheme.
Map the career paths objectively
We identify the skills available, the target jobs, the possible bridges and the gaps to cover.
Roll out the support
We structure the processes, inform the people involved and help employees define and carry out their plans.
Monitor the results
We track the career paths under way, the moves completed, the time taken to complete them and the quality of integration, so the scheme can be adjusted.
What are the benefits of an internal mobility scheme?
For the company, a structured professional mobility policy makes it easier to adapt skills to new priorities. It makes better use of internal resources, helps retain key know-how and gives greater visibility when managing change.
For HR, it provides a shared framework to guide employees, compare transition options and coordinate mobility, training and talent management.
For employees, it makes career prospects more tangible. Each person can better understand their experience, identify the career paths open to them and know the steps they need to take.
Success is therefore not measured solely by the number of moves completed. It also depends on how relevant the plans are, the quality of the support and how well employees settle into their new roles.
How does internal mobility fit with other career transitions?
Internal mobility should be considered whenever a suitable role exists within the company or group. The move can be direct, or it may require a skills assessment, a training programme, job shadowing or an adjustment period. Bespoke assessments can, in particular, give an objective view of how well the employee’s skills match those required in the target job.
When internal options are not enough, or do not match the employee’s plans, other forms of support can be brought in. Collective outplacement supports several employees affected by a reorganisation. Individual outplacement addresses the transition needs of a professional, a manager or a senior executive.
Professional mobility can also be combined with pre-retirement support to prepare for the end of a career, or with psychosocial risk prevention when change creates tension or leaves employees in a vulnerable position.
Make professional mobility a real driver for transformation
An effective mobility policy connects the company’s needs, the skills available and employees’ career plans.
Alixio Group helps you turn these needs into a clear, practical scheme that is easy to monitor, from defining the mobility policy through to taking up the new role.
Q&A – Professional mobility
What is the difference between professional mobility and internal mobility?
Professional mobility covers all the changes that can occur in a career: a new role, a new job, a new function, a change of site or a change of employer. Internal mobility refers to a move made within the same company or group.
How do you build career pathways between jobs?
You need to compare the activities and skills of the current job with those of the target job. This analysis identifies the transferable skills, the gaps to close, the essential prerequisites and the development path required.
How do you measure the effectiveness of an internal mobility scheme?
The indicators need to be linked to the scheme's objectives. They can cover the plans under way, the moves completed, the time taken to complete them, the training used, how successfully employees settle into their new roles, and employee and manager satisfaction.
