The Hiring Freeze is Here. Your Best Talent Is Already on the Payroll.
For the last few years, talent strategy was a frantic scramble to backfill roles and fight off the “Great Resignation.” That era is over.
Welcome to the “Big Stay.”
The external labor market is frozen. Recent data shows job openings, new hires, and voluntary resignations are all down significantly. This means the single most reliable, agile, and cost-effective source of talent is the one you already have: your existing employees.
Internal mobility—the movement of employees into new roles within your company—is no longer a simple retention “perk.” It has become the most critical sourcing strategy for growth. In fact, internal fill rates are already climbing, from 32% to 39% in the last year alone.
Here’s the data-driven case for why investing in internal mobility is the smartest business decision you can make today.
The #1 Reason Your Best Employees Leave (and How to Fix It)
If you think the #1 reason people leave is pay, you’re missing the real story.
Multiple studies from Gartner, McKinsey, and Pew Research all point to the same conclusion: the most common and powerful driver of attrition is a “lack of career development and advancement.”
Your employees don’t necessarily want to leave. They want to grow.
The problem is a massive visibility gap. One study found that while 54% of employees believe they have better opportunities inside their current company, only 23% have ever successfully made an internal move.
This is a systemic failure, not a loyalty failure. A visible, accessible internal mobility program is the most direct solution to the primary reason your talent walks out the door.
The Hard ROI: Internal Mobility by the Numbers
Investing in your internal talent isn’t just a “nice-to-have.” It delivers a staggering, measurable return on investment that crushes external hiring metrics in every category.
- You’ll Keep People (Nearly) Twice as Long: Employees at companies with high internal mobility stay for an average of 5.4 years. At companies with low mobility, that tenure plummets to just 2.9 years.
- You’ll Cut Hiring Costs Dramatically: Hiring internally is 3 to 5 times cheaper than hiring an external candidate. You save on sourcing, agency fees, and the high cost of external offers (which average $4,700 for just one role).
- You’ll Get New Hires to Productivity 50% Faster: An external hire can take 6 months to get fully up to speed. An internal hire, who already knows the culture, systems, and people, can reach full productivity in as little as 3 months.
- You’ll Fill Roles Faster: Internal recruitment can slash your time-to-fill by up to 20 days, closing productivity gaps while your competitors are still sourcing candidates.
- You’ll Grow Your Revenue (Seriously): This isn’t just about saving money. It’s about making it. Data shows that companies with evolved mobility programs are 2.5x to 3.5x more likely to experience high revenue growth.
Build an Agile, Innovative, and Low-Risk Leadership Team
A static workforce is a brittle one. A mobile workforce, on the other hand, becomes your ultimate competitive advantage.
- It Breaks Down Silos: When people move between departments, they carry insights, relationships, and new ways of thinking with them. This “cross-pollination” of ideas is a direct catalyst for innovation.
- It Builds Your Leadership Pipeline: Why gamble on expensive external leaders? Organizations with strong mobility programs fill 75% of their leadership positions from within.
- It’s a Lower-Risk Bet: The data is startling: external hires are 61% more likely to be fired or laid off within their first year than an internal promotion.
How to Start: From “Talent Hoarding” to “Talent Exporting”
Even with executive buy-in, many mobility programs fail at the last hurdle: the line manager.
The single biggest blocker to internal mobility is “talent hoarding.” This is the rational—but destructive—behavior of managers who hide their best people to protect their own team’s short-term performance.
But you can’t blame the manager; you have to blame the system. We punish managers for letting talent go. The solution is to change the incentives.
- Shift from “Jobs” to “Skills”: Adopt a skills-first philosophy. Stop focusing on rigid job titles and start mapping the actual capabilities your employees have. This reveals hidden potential, like a developer with a network security degree who is a perfect fit for a cybersecurity role.
- Invest in an Internal Talent Marketplace (ITM): This is the technology that makes mobility possible. An ITM is an AI-powered platform that acts like an “internal LinkedIn,” matching employees’ skills and aspirations with open roles, short-term “gigs,” and mentorships. It solves the visibility crisis for good.
- Reward “Talent Exporters”: This is the most critical step. Stop rewarding managers only for team retention. Make “developing and exporting talent to the wider enterprise” a core, measured, and rewarded competency in every manager’s performance review.
Your Next Great Hire Already Works for You
The talent you’re spending thousands of dollars and months of time trying to find externally is likely already walking your halls. They are hungry for growth and already understand your business.
It’s time to stop fighting the expensive war for external talent and start building the internal pathways that let your best people grow with you.
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