Strategic approach for Polish organizations to implement intraorganizational mobility of employees

Mobility has been of interest to management theorists and practitioners for many years (Chowdhury & Hassan, 2017; Griffeth, Hom & Gaertner, 2000; Jackofsky & Peters, 1983; Kammeyer-Mueller, Wanberg, Glomb & Ahlburg, 2005; March & Simon, 1958). However, it is most often analyzed in the context of the external labor market (Arnold & Cohen, 2008). Taking into account the contemporary treatment of employees as an internal talent market, however, which creates value for the organization in the form of enabling better use of their knowledge, skills, and abilities (Keller, 2018), the role of the organization as an active and conscious entity in their management becomes important. In addition, the changes taking place in the organization's environment mean that it is increasingly directed towards reorienting resources towards reductions or various redeployments of employees (Feldman, 1996). Intraorganizational mobility of employees (IME) within the organizational structure is one such redeployment that is necessary and particularly desirable today (Halpern, 2004). This practice is linked to the greater cost-effectiveness of organizations in investing in the internal development of employees and the use of their expertise (Karim & Williams, 2012).

It should also be pointed out that IME is not only initiated and created by internal factors, but also by the working environment, which influences the conditions and situation of the worker. Therefore, the role of the organization in shaping the space for the development of this mobility cannot be overlooked. As noted by Williams and Mitchell (2004), the mobility experience of executives influences the market strategies of many organizations. At the same time, the empirical literature on the applicability of intraorganizational mobility from an organizational perspective remains sparse (Steel & Landon, 2010), with most studies focusing on establishing the relationship between intraorganizational mobility and individual variables (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2005; Griffeth et al., 2000; Fields, Dingman, Roman & Blum, 2005; Jackofsky, 1984; Kalleberg & Mastekaasa, 2001). Interestingly, as Chowdhury and Hasan (2017) state, about 15% of employees, will leave the organization if certain mitigation strategies are not put in place. This is because retaining employees is much cheaper than external recruitment and subsequent training; therefore, every organization should take specific steps to develop robust strategies, including retention, to prevent the potential departure of employees (Chowdhury & Hasan, 2017).

The main reasons for undertaking research in this area were the paucity of empirical research in the area of intraorganizational mobility and the relationship of IME with organizational strategy (Shen & Hall, 2009; Katou, 2017) as an important management instrument, Taking this into account, the aim of this article is to present the relationship between intraorganizational mobility and the strategy in this area by contemporary organizations. The article also searched for answers to questions about the organization of a strategy regarding internal mobility and its scope of planning and evaluation. This study is an attempt to fill the research gap in this area.

Despite the fact that mobility as a concept appears in many studies devoted to the functioning of societies, economies, and organizations experiencing the effects of permanent change, it is difficult to find studies that address the definitional framework of mobility. Most often the analysis of labor mobility is explored in two dimensions: spatial (Arnold & Cohen, 2008) and organizational (Chowdhury & Hassan, 2017; Steel & London, 2010). Most studies focus on external mobility (Arnold & Cohen, 2008). Although it should be noted that IME is increasingly becoming the subject of various empirical studies (Belasheva, Shopovalov, Ershova, Lozhechkina & Tereshenko, 2018; Feldman & Ng, 2007; Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2005), especially in the individual dimension.

Employee mobility is most often defined as “any actual or potential change in the structure and distribution of human resources within an organization (de Luis Carnicer, Sanchez, Perez & Jimenez, 2004, p. 227). However, it should be noted that there are many synonymous terms for the phenomenon in question. These are turnover (Jackofsky, 1984; Griffeth et al., 2000), employee reallocation (Gianelle, 2014) or intraorganizational mobility (McElroy, Morrow, & Mullen, 1996; Noe, Steffy & Barber, 1988). Various attempts have also been made to interpret this issue, although all of them are related to employee movements within the organization. Thus, Noe, Steffy & Barber (1988, p. 560) consider internal mobility to be employee promotion or transfer vertically, diagonally, and horizontally. Similar aspects are pointed out by van Vianen, Feij, Krausz & Taris (2003), who relate mobility to job changes or to a change in the assignment of job duties and/or functions (de Luis Carnicer et al., 2004, p. 227). In contrast, Jackofsky and Peters (1983) distinguish mobility in a broader sense – as a change of jobs within and between organizations – and in a narrower sense – the departure of employees from the organization. Definitions are also used that focus on the interpretation of mobility as a situation in which an employee, as a result of organizational, economic, or technological changes, acquires new skills and knowledge (Feldman & Ng, 2007, p. 352). Attempts to interpret the mobility of employees in an organization also result from their division. This is most often done on the basis of the status and nature of the employer (Ng, Sorensen, Eby & Feldman, 2007, pp. 364–366), which differentiates mobility into the following categories: (1) internal vertical mobility (promotion) – the most desirable mobility in the organization, it is associated with prestige, increased status, responsibility and financial resources; (2) external vertical mobility (promotion), meaning the employee's promotion in the organization where he/she will be employed; (3) internal lateral mobility, horizontal promotion (so called) of the employee in the same organization, including vertical mobility (an employee is promoted horizontally within the same organization); (4) lateral mobility, in which an employee is promoted to the same position but in a different organization: (5) internal downward mobility, in which an employee is downgraded in the organizational hierarchy; and (6) external downward mobility, in which an employee is promoted to a lower position in a new organization.

In addition to the types of mobility presented above (horizontal and vertical), we should also add transverse (diagonal) mobility, which is aimed at moving employees between different levels of hierarchy in the organizational structure. This can, for example, take the form of promotion or demotion within the same or another new organization.

Nicholson and West (1988), on the other hand, proposed an extended classification of mobility based on three dimensions: status (upward, downward, lateral), fulfilment of function in the organization (same, variable), and nature of employer (internal, external).

Thus, most often the IME is identified with any movement within the organization. At present, however, internal mobility is perceived not only as the possibility to move within the organization, but also as other possibilities related to changes, e.g., in the form and content of work. This is indicated by turnover models (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2005; Steel, 2002). Furthermore, it should be mentioned that internal mobility is not limited to the promotion of an employee. A lateral transfer, for example, can completely satisfy an individual's need to change jobs (Hulin, Roznowski & Hachiya, 1985). Furthermore, Steel and Landon (2010) extended the definition of internal mobility. They included pathways, that is, training opportunities/tasks that broaden a career, thus leading to a job change (e.g., promotion).

When interpreting the IME, one has to be aware of the complexity of this category, especially in terms of the range of issues that need to be taken into account in the process of developing a full description. Therefore, it may be justified to use the terms “displacement”, “fluctuation”, or “rotation” interchangeably, provided that they are broadly understood employee movements. Thus, in this article, I have assumed that the internal mobility of an employee will be defined as a feature (description) of the individual and professional competences of the employee, his or her ability to actively search for opportunities, and forms for changing the employee's competency profile within the organization, as well as any active actions in this area on the part of both the individual and the organization.

In the literature, empirical studies related to internal employee mobility most often address the relationship between promotion (upward mobility) and employee retention (Kammeyer-Mueller et al.; 2005, Griffeth et al., 2000). In a situation where employees perceive limited opportunities for internal promotion, they will be inclined to leave the organization (Vardi, 1980). So, they seek other opportunities outside the organization (Ford, Truxillo & Bauer, 2009). Furthermore, empirical reports are mainly concerned with finding the factors that influence internal mobility and establishing and focusing on their effects. The results of these findings indicate a relationship between intraorganizational mobility of employees and organizational commitment (Holmes, 2011; Kondratuk, Hausdorf, Korabik & Rosin, 2004), job satisfaction (Fields et al., 2005; Jackofsky, 1984), organizational attachment (Kalleberg & Mastekaasa, 2001), or personality traits (van Vienen et al., 2003; Ng et al., 2007). Thus, the most common of the research concerns internal mobility and its relationship with individual variables. Less often is its relationship with organizational variables revealed. If this relationship is taken into account, these variables are most often found in connection with other variables, for example, individual variables, and are included in multifactor models describing internal employee mobility (Ng et al., 2007; de Luis Carnicer et al., 2004). Organizational factors determining internal mobility include mainly personnel policies, organizational practices, rules and procedures within the organization, remuneration, size of the organization, structure, and technology used (Feldman & Ng, 2007; Fields et al., 2005; Griffeth et al., 2000; Vardi, 1980). Most often, intraorganizational mobility of employees is discussed on the sidelines of other scientific inquiries or in studies focused only on the analyzed subprocess of human resource management. It should not be forgotten that internal mobility is studied not in the form of simple relationships between variables but is also described by means of mediating variables (mediators) and moderating factors. These complex relationships are illustrated by the previously cited models (Vardi, 1980; Holmes, 2011; Jackofsky, 1984).

Thus, there is no single list proposing the organizational variables that shape employee mobility. Theoretical and empirical studies on employee mobility to date make little reference to internal mobility from the perspective of the organization and its active role in this area. The mechanisms supporting mobility by HR departments are also not sufficiently presented.

Our empirical study was conducted in the year 2020 in Poland. Medium-sized and large enterprises were deliberately selected for the study. This choice was related to the functioning of a specific structure and strategy in these organizations, one that enables internal mobility processes. In medium- and large-sized organizations, various programs (e.g., talent management) that support intraorganizational mobility of employees, are much more frequent (Mazurkiewicz, 2013). These organizations also have extensive human resource management processes that are able to modify the activities carried out to meet the expectations of talented employees (Pauli, 2016, p. 152) and those displaying a propensity for mobility. In the research process, a diagnostic survey method was used with an online questionnaire.

A database of business entities (entered in the REGON register as at 30 April 2020) purchased specifically for the purposes of the study from the Central Statistical Office was used as the sampling frame. It contained 31,944 business entities employing at least 50 employees. The persons directly responsible for filling in the questionnaires were those who held the position of HR Specialist or HR Manager in a given organization. The study assumed that such persons would possess knowledge of internal employee mobility and the factors that constitute it. It was also assumed that only one person representing a given organization could take part in the survey.

The research was conducted between 30 May 2020 through 15 August 2020. It should be noted that the holiday period affected the extension of time that had to be allocated to the research process. The empirical material obtained was then subjected to statistical analysis using the IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 program.

In this article, when assessing the relationship between two variables, the Chi-square and the exact independence test (Fisher's test) were used. These tests are used for variables measured on non-metric scales, especially on a qualitative nominal scale. On the other hand, for the comparison of two populations (e.g., the inclusion of IME in the HRM strategy by medium and large organizations) the Mann-Whitney U test was used. This test is recommended not only for variables measured on an ordinal scale, but also when the variable depends on the quantity and we are dealing with deviations from normal distribution in at least one of the subpopulations compared (Wiktorowicz et al., 2020, p. 86). When comparing more than two groups (e.g., the time scope of internal mobility included in the organization's strategy among the surveyed entities was characterized by a range including local, national, and international) the Kruskal-Wallis test was used (Wiktorowicz et al., 2020, p. 103).

The following research questions were also formulated:

Do the organizations included in the HRM strategy survey with procedures related to IME have them included in the HRM strategy?

The survey covered 401 enterprises, representing entities employing at least 50 employees (i.e., medium-sized and large). In the population of business entities in Poland, at the end of April 2020, 27,638 entities employing 50–249 people and 4,306 employing 250 or more people were registered. Taking into account the nature of the organization, the structure of the collective is presented in Table 1. Among the surveyed entities, large organizations (69%) and those with a national scope of activity (49.9%) prevail.

The results of the research indicate that intra-organizational mobility is included in the organization's strategy only among less than 30% of the organizations. Additionally, fewer than 40% intend to include it in their human resources strategy and 28% of the analyzed entities do not have IME included in their strategy. Interestingly, they do not intend to include it. This fact should be noted, although the presented statistical values do not induce optimism. The remaining organizations declare that although they do not have a formal procedure for internal mobility, their solutions can be found mainly in such procedures as internal recruitment (59.8%), talent management (48.5%), employee development (47.8%), and employee retention (20.7%).

In terms of the nature of the organization, however, 27% of medium-sized companies and 36% of large companies have internal mobility as part of their strategy, whereas almost 40% of international companies, 27% of national companies, and only 14% of local companies (Figure 1) include it in their strategy.

Figure 1

Interestingly, having such a procedure in the organization (internal mobility) in written form is more common in organizations that have it embedded in their human resource management strategy. The more strategic the approach to intraorganizational redeployment procedures is, the more developed it is (rho = 0.442, p < 0.001*), and vice versa: the better the approach to redeployment procedures, the more advanced the strategic solutions in this area. For those organizations that have written intraorganizational mobility of employee procedures, more than half have written them into their HR strategy, while only 15.6% have not done so and do not plan to do so in the future (Figure 2). Half of the surveyed organizations that have the procedures discussed, however, do not have them in written form, although these organizations plan to include them in the HRM strategy.

Figure 2

The same applies to companies that do not have mobility procedures but are planning to do so. On the other hand, 80% of the organizations that have such procedures unscripted are also not interested in having them written into their HR strategy. However, even among those companies without dedicated internal mobility procedures, there are some that have written employee mobility into their strategy (nearly 1 in 10). These are organizations that have only included internal mobility in other HR procedures, such as talent management, recruitment, and training procedures.

It was important to find out whether the organizations that have internal mobility as part of their HR management strategy make their decision based on planning or whether these are spontaneous, unplanned decisions. The results of the research indicate that organizations that have internal mobility as part of their strategy, more often carry out these activities in a planned way (80.7%) rather than spontaneously. On the other hand, organizations that do not have internal mobility activities included in their strategy implement them in only about 30% of the organizations (Figure 3.). This relationship is statistically significant (p < 0.001*). Interestingly, organizations that have embedded internal mobility in their HR strategy rate it well or very well (96%), with only 4% rating it poorly.

Figure 3

This assessment is not related to either the size of the organization or its type. Comparing organizations by size and their assessment of internal mobility using the Mann-Whitney U test, p = 0.126 was obtained, with α = 0.05. However, in the case of the extent of the organization (local, national, international), the Kruskal-Wallis test presented significant differences p < 0.001, with α = 0.05. It should be noted that a significantly higher level was reached for international organizations than for local (p < 0.001) and national (p < 0.001) organizations.

When it comes to the time scope of these strategies, for half of the organizations in this group the scope is long term (51.3%) and for only one in eight companies it is short term (12.6%). It is noticeable that the internal mobility strategy in large organizations has a medium-term planning horizon of 49.5%. In medium-sized organizations, a long-term strategy dominates (54.4%). Considering the scope of the organization, all of them operating in a local market have a medium-term strategy. On the other hand, in national and international organizations, long-term strategy definitely prevails. The data also indicate that this assessment of the scope of the internal mobility strategy is not related to the size or nature of the organization. Significant differences, as with the previous strategy assessment, were noted in the case of the nature of the organization (local, national, international). The Kruskal-Wallis test presented significant differences p < 0.001, with α = 0.05. It should be noted that a significantly higher level was reached for international organizations than for national (p < 0.002) and local (p < 0.012) organizations.

In view of the importance of integrating internal mobility into an organization's HRM strategy, the surveyed organizations were asked whether they considered it necessary. Almost 80% of the surveyed organizations agreed with the need to include internal mobility in their strategy. Only 5% of the surveyed organizations are against it.

The results of the research confirmed hypothesis 1: Organizations that include built-in internal mobility in their management strategy are much more likely to make decisions about mobility in a planned manner. The result obtained indicates that these activities should not only be formal records but should also be implemented in practice. The result is therefore optimistic, as the defined strategy of the organization determines the management process. Thus, at the stage of strategy formulation, these organizations consciously attach importance to internal mobility solutions. It is also important to identify the factors that determine the mobility of employees. They are differentiated depending on the conditions of the local labor market, the sector in which the company operates, and the profile of its activity. In turn, one of the key factors influencing internal mobility is its inclusion in strategic human resource management (Schuler & Jackson 2014). Depending on the strategic vision adopted, employees may initiate or be encouraged to undertake mobility activities. Moreover, such interventions are embedded not only in human resource management strategy, but also in other functional strategies that shape the expression of the overall business strategy. It is also positive that organizations feel the need to integrate internal mobility procedures into the organization's strategy. Taking this approach indicates their recognition of these procedures as important and necessary in the process of human resource management.

Hypotheses 2 and 3 should be rejected. The strategic approach to IME is not related to the nature of the organization. This applies to both its range and size. Significant differences were noted only in the case of the scope of the organization. Higher scores were achieved by international organizations. This distribution of data should also not be surprising, given that international organizations, unlike local and national organizations, have elaborate structures and their complexity increases with the level of their internationalization (Glinkowska & Kaczmarek, 2016, p. 69). They are therefore inherently more flexible, providing greater opportunities for internal mobility. As organizations grow, their strategies become more ambitious and sophisticated and thus require more complex and decentralized structural arrangements (Zakrzewska-Bielawska, 2011, p. 267). However, the opposite situation may occur. Under the influence of various factors (e.g., changes in the environment), the structure is first transformed, which then exerts a strong influence on the reorientation of the strategy thus forming mutual relations between the structure and the organization's strategy (Zakrzewska-Bielawska, 2011).

It would seem that in large entities, due to the number of employees, their structure may be conducive to strategic decisions regarding internal labor mobility. However, it is important to remember the other factors that make such mobility possible. These are both organizational and subject-related conditions. Only their synergy provides a basis for the development and implementation of a strategy for IME. This is why its formalization is so important currently, as on the one hand, by means of specific organizational solutions, it can support employees in their development, and fulfil an adaptation function. This internal mobility function aims to adapt the individual and professional competences of employees to the current situation of the organization by means of specific measures. On the other hand, this type of strategy acts as a guideline for employees to engage in mobile behavior.

Moreover, according to the research conducted, elements related to internal mobility solutions can be found in other procedures, such as employee development, training, or talent management procedures. Therefore, it seems that taking into account the different activities that are part of the IME strategy, formalized rules in the form of a separate procedure dedicated to internal mobility can also, and in principle should, function in an organization. Furthermore, the standardization of such activities would not exclude the existence of other HR procedures focused on their key aspects. Thus, the procedures used by organizations to transfer employees into and between jobs can be a key way to allocate human capital within organizations (Bidwell, 2000, p. 153).

It becomes important for organizations to maintain a strategic advantage by retaining their most valuable employees. Therefore, managers should understand the difference between valuable employees and an employee who contributes little to the organization so that they can design appropriate strategies to retain valuable employees (Mak & Sockel, 2001). IME procedures located in strategic human resource management may be just one such strategy. It should formally function in the organization, being an integral element of strategic human resources management.