The four Ws of internal mobility what, when, why, who (and how) Internal mobility is the procedure, which

h should be clearly defined by means of a policy, regulating the movement of employees from a position to another within the same organisation. In general, used to fill vacant positions arisen within an organisation and/or new positions created within it, internal mobility can, without question, be considered as part of an organisation recruitment strategy. Indeed, internal mobility can allow organisations to achieve remarkable additional objectives compared to just allowing organisations to thoroughly and effectively execute their recruitment practices basically aiming to find the right person for the right position.

As suggested by Jeff Joerres (2010), Manpower Inc. Chairman and CEO, in fact, "Internal mobility programmes should be pursued to promote the crossfertilisation of ideas and commitment by all employees to the global mindset of the company". Businesses can resort to internal mobility programmes when needing to increase retention, enhance productivity (leveraging existing staff), pursuing cost savings strategies (through lower severance, sourcing and onboarding costs), as well as when needing to reduce staff department labour costs. Internal mobility can be implemented differently according to the different objectives an organisation intends to pursue and is expected to achieve.

Coupling the method internal mobility can be implemented with the results expected from its implementation allows identifying a number of internal mobility scheme options: Internal sourcing Implemented through internal job posting, the aim of this method is to fill all the kinds of positions arising within an organisation internally. Main objectives: provide opportunities for existing employees growth and career development; attract and retain staff in general and talent in particular. Employment exchange Put into practice through interdepartmental working and co-working schemes, where applicable also across the organisation subsidiaries and branches.

Main objectives: enhance engagement and team working. Fixed term mobility programme Realised by offering staff fixed term assignments in different areas of the organisation. Main objectives: broaden staff skills and experience and favour staff development. This option represents an effective costsfree solution to fill internal short-term position quickly and create a flexible workforce in order to effectively and efficiently use skills and resources within the organisation. Managers mobility Implemented by managers rotation though different functions and units. Main objectives: leadership development, required to forge the next

future business executives and succession planning facilitation. This method also has the additional benefit of enabling the managers concerned to learn the companys operations and getting to know its customers from the perspective of the different functions and/or units. Making reference to the different functions existing within an organisation, Stiles et al (2006) reporting on a scheme used at P&G, illustrate how internal mobility can be implemented through: Job rotation - within the same function but in different business units/locations; Broadening assignments - temporarily moving to a different function; and Career moves - permanently moving to a different function.

The final choice amongst the available options will clearly depend on the objectives an organisation intends to pursue. Business executives need to have crystal clear ideas about the objectives and aims an internal mobility scheme is intended to pursue, so that they need to be defined before the policy formulation and scheme implementation. Clearly, these objectives need to be aligned to the organisation recruitment strategy and to the overall business strategy as well. Whatever the choice amongst the different options available, internal mobility will reveal to also be an effective contributor to employee satisfaction. Moreover, as revealed by a

study carried out by iLogos, in 2003, internal mobility is expected to allow organisations to achieve valuable results to protect intellectual property, maintain competitiveness and innovate faster. Clearly, as long as people tend to stay within an organisation, risks associated with disclosure of confidential information are sensibly reduced; although a recent case at Renault France (where the alleged three spies have been dismissed) seems to undermine this principle. On the other hand an exceedingly close environment could hamper an organisation to see things from a different perspective and outlook. External recruiting is, in fact, supposed to bring organisations what is commonly called fresh thinking and ideas. Another likely backlash of internal mobility, but it very much depends on

the frequency it is used with the same people, is that although mobility allows staff being able to perform different tasks, it can represent a barrier for employees to acquire a relevant degree of expertise and specialisation. Nalbantian and Guzzo (2009) wisely warn of the negative impact caused by a careless and inadequate mobility frequency and suggest that managers, but their advice can be extended to the generality of cases, should stay in any given position at least for the time necessary to allow them to enjoy the fruits or suffer the consequences of their decisions. Organisations should, then, adopt timein-position schemes in order to avoid the disruptions normally related to a too high mobility turnover rate.

It goes without saying that organisations trying to adopt internal mobility programmes in order to reduce their turnover rate, should avoid to adopt measures causing further turnover (although of a different type) and the negative effects usually associated with them. Before implementing an internal mobility programme within an organisation, some considerations are absolutely crucial in order to subsequently take consistent decisions. The first aspect to consider concerns the decision to internally post all of the positions eventually available within the organisation or otherwise. Even though the business should decide to internally advertise all the positions, this would not

mean that the organisation would be unable to extend the research externally, in the event the sought position could not be properly filled internally. This kind of decision, in fact, should not have any negative impact on the most important aim of a recruitment procedure, i.e. find the right person for the right position, and should be taken duly considering the current workforce skills and capabilities and the external labour market conditions. Understanding the internal labour market, succession pools and career progression, as well as having an in depth knowledge of the local labour market trends and features (demographic trends included) is, in fact, pivotal in order to decide whether it could be preferable to source internally rather than invest time and resources to recruit externally.

Research carried out by Taleo provides some interesting and useful hints in order to better cope with the issue. In particular, the Taleo study revealed that organisations having a high rate of internal redeployment may find it more useful to recruit externally. The study also warns organisations filling too many positions internally of the likely disruptive effects generated by the need to replace the positions made vacant by staff involved in the internal mobility programme. Obviously moving a person from any given position will, in turn, account for that position to fall vacant and needing to be filled, generating a sort of knock-on effect. The fact of the matter is that, basically, for each moved person two recruitments processes are required: one aiming to replace the person involved with mobility and the other in

order to fill the vacant position let by the person who needs to be moved. Internal mobility should not be just about filling jobs and moving people around (Systematic HR, 2010), these programmes should, in fact, specifically aim to effectively and properly use resources and talent within an organisation and move them within the different areas of the business accordingly, in order to use them most aggressively and achieve competitive edge. Whatever the aim of internal mobility and whatever the way it is implemented, internal mobility is basically and invariably destined to improve staff skills and provide them with possibilities for growth and career advancement.

Employers should then struggle to offer this opportunity to individuals genuinely and truly committed to their career development, who have what it takes to assume new and/or different tasks and responsibilities, who are keen to take initiative and who have, in some ways, showed to be ready to develop and learn new skills. Organisations should also ponder the eventuality to consider a minimum period of permanence of individuals in their current position for internal mobility eligibility. Employers should also consider if they would be willing to accept applications from staff involved in disciplinary proceeding, especially if on account of unsatisfactory performance claims, at least as long as proceedings have not been resolved. Managers definitely play a very

important role for internal mobility programmes success, so that their full support is definitely required. As appropriately suggested by Stiles et al (2006), managers should encourage and foster staff move for personal and professional growth and act as mentors and coaches. Managers should also be able to avoid silo thinking, that is showing concern just for their units interest rather than for the whole organisation. The effect of such a practice, in fact, will have a strong negative impact on leadership development and knowledge sharing across the organisation. Open job posting, considered much more likely to succeed in environments whose culture encourage managers to facilitate talent transfer across the organisation, is considered a helpful and successful way

to break down barriers eventually raised by internal silos. Open job posting is likely to be very effective not only to retain existing staff but also to attract qualified and skilled staff as well. Some organisations, in a move which could apparently seem leading to take internal mobility to extremes, extend internal mobility programmes to employee representatives and trade unions. To ensure that employee representatives would have the skills and qualities enabling them to be effective negotiators, for instance, Shell provides union representatives with special opportunities for mobility. Research shows a clear positive correlation between career advancement

opportunities, retention rates and productivity levels (Kelly Services, 2004). Additionally, in terms of productivity, an external newcomer can require up to twice as long to reach the same productivity as an internal hire. Studies also show that business having and resorting to internal mobility programmes record turnover rates four percent lower than organisation without any internal mobility policy. Putting in place internal mobility programmes and provide the necessary tools to effectively implement them is not exactly plain sailing and some investments are obviously required. However, it just takes to carefully consider the cost incurred by organisations when losing trained staff and replacing them to find out how the investment is definitely worth it and can

be quickly recouped. Finally, as for the relevance of internal mobility in terms of employment law, more specifically as for what concerns the contract of employment, organisations planning to formulate and implement internal mobility practices within subsidiaries should include in the terms and conditions of employment a mobility clause. Businesses can invoke mobility clauses specifying that individuals must work in any location as needed by the firm as long as that discretion is used reasonably by the employer: the acid test is whether or not the employer acts reasonably (Armstrong, 2006). Longo, R., (2011), The four Ws of internal mobility what, when, why, who (and how), HR Professionals, .