I don't usually get engaged in semantic arguments, but one terms that's always bothered me is "internal mobility." To me, the term implies the exact opposite of how a company should think about hiring from their internal talent pool. It says, "if you're interested in finding something else to do, go ahead and find it we won't stop you."
I recently had this conversation with a neighbor of mine who worked for IBM for 10 years. He left to join a startup that recruited him away from IBM because, in his words, "IBM wasn't really as interested in keeping me and advancing me as the startup was in hiring me." How did he come to this conclusion? Because a recruiter at the startup had been calling him relatively frequently over the last 6 months before he left, seeing if there was a way to make a job at that company work for him. During that time period, no one from IBM called and asked him the same questions. It's almost as if they assumed that an employee that worked at the company for 10 years was just as likely to stay for the next 20.
Which is why I like the term and the approach of "continuous recruiting" for your current employees. Because if you're not continually and proactively re-recruiting your own employees, someone else will.
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