Internal mobility has been a hot buzzword in HR for a while.
As the labor market cools and companies pull back on external hiring, more are considering how to best develop and leverage their existing workforce.
Caroline Bethune, manager of internal mobility at the conglomerate Cox Enterprises, says most companies take one of two routes when developing existing talent: They either dedicate part of their talent acquisition team to internal mobility and requisitions, or create a team focused on developing strategy around and creating (but not overseeing) initiatives like a talent marketplace or mentoring program.
Her team is trying to strike a balance between the two—an approach, she says, she hasn’t seen at many other companies.
“Our team is sort of in the middle of both of those,” Bethune told HR Brew. “So we’re uniquely setting a trend, I feel like, for what internal mobility could be outside of those two predominant spaces.”
This approach was informed by employee feedback and a desire to ensure the company’s internal mobility program was based on workers’ needs. Bethune saw an opportunity for a team that employees could turn to for feedback on their applications, interviews, or thank-you letters.
“I think being able to solve [those issues] is probably most critical for an HR partner or a business that’s looking to deepen their exposure in the internal mobility space,” Bethune said. “They first have to really understand: Where are your people today at? What are the pain points today? What do they think about the experience? What are the challenges they have moving in the organization? Because if you don’t have a really good pulse there, then everything you’re building doesn’t resonate with actual employees.”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you’ve worked?
Building an internal mobility team.
We have four advisors that are on the team today. One of the things I felt where there was a gap was, there isn’t a centralized place for employees to go one-to-one to get career guidance. They can go to the HRBPs and they can give them some feedback, they certainly can go to their leader to help develop and build them. But there isn’t a team that actually sits closest to talent in the hiring practices giving them coaching and guidance and strategic advice, planning their career journey and having those conversations.
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So my first thought was, well, let’s build one. If we’re going to focus on internal mobility, let’s have a team that is specifically there to empower and guide our employees through connecting to the right roles and opportunities. That’s the framing of where we created the team, and then we moved into: How do we actually build a scalable consult program? And so that’s what we do today. We meet employees where they are, but we offer one-to-one guidance for employees around coaching and development in their career journey.
What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job?
That internal mobility advisors don’t participate in recruiting. Meaning that there is a distinction between traditional recruiters, and what our teams are doing from a talent delivery perspective, and then what we’re doing.
We’re still recruiting. Internal mobility is still an aspect of recruiting. It looks very different because, we don’t have specific [requisitions] for you to then apply to, for us to go through the process with, and then for us to end up hiring someone. It’s not an end-to-end service. But what we are doing is we are helping to build awareness for our leaders around talent that otherwise they wouldn’t have known, which is a part of recruiting.
What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job?
Helping people discover new possibilities within the company. Empowering them to grow, stay, and thrive. It’s incredibly rewarding to see someone go from feeling uncertain about their next step to landing a role that reenergizes their career, all while staying in a place they already know and value.
What trend in HR are you most optimistic about? Why?
Internal mobility—focusing on “build vs. buy” talent strategies—developing existing employees rather than constantly hiring externally.
What trend in HR are you least optimistic about? Why?
Erosion of trust in DEI efforts. Not because the work itself isn’t valuable, but because progress has stalled or even regressed in many organizations.