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When we talk about onboarding, we’re often referring to new employees – hires who have been recruited from the job market for a specific role in your organization.
But how do you prepare an existing employee who makes a move within your organization? What sort of learning does an existing employee need, and do they need to be onboarded for their new role?
The benefits of internal mobility in the workplace
Internal mobility is the movement of existing employees to new roles in your organization. The move might be vertical — for example, when an employee is promoted to management within their own department. The move might also be lateral — an employee in one unit of your organization might be interested in changing up their skills and moving to a different one.
Fostering internal mobility improves employee morale, reducing churn and overhead for your organization. That’s because employees, particularly younger ones, value the learning and career advancement opportunities that come with internal mobility. One study found that internal mobility boosts engagement among employees. Additionally, companies that invest in reskilling, upskilling, and leadership development programs can reduce the time and resources that go into external hiring.
Why bother with internal onboarding?
Not every organization onboards internal hires. If a person moves from one job to another, they might be given cursory training on a new system, new devices, or a different business process before being expected to hit the ground running.
This happens in management as well; a person is promoted because they’re very good at their current role — and suddenly they’re in a role that requires a completely different set of skills. But the organization assumes that, because the employee was a star in their previous role or has been with the company for a long time, they will do great.
But that’s not how it works, says Litmos Chief Learning Officer, Dr. Jill Stefaniak.
“I think we don’t always anticipate what an internally mobile employee’s needs may be, or that they may have learning needs,” she said. “But sometimes it’s just helping that employee to just re-center. It’s looking at what that employee needs to be successful in their new role.”
What’s the difference between reskilling and onboarding?
Reskilling is the process of teaching an employee new skills, so they can move to another role. While reskilling should be part of the internal onboarding process, there’s more to onboarding than teaching a few new skills.
Onboarding is an introduction to an employee’s new role within an organization and should be approached more strategically than a simple reskilling module or lesson. An organization should be building a series of supports for a transferring or promoted employee, for the long term as they progress in their new role.
“True onboarding extends beyond the first couple of days or the first week,” says Dr. Stefaniak. “It’s being really intentional with the types of resources and training we’re providing our employees during their onboarding.”
Employees who are transferring or being promoted need support during their role transitions, just like new hires. But does that need to be onboarding? They already know your organization, mission, market and culture. Shouldn’t they just be reskilled?
Not necessarily. Some of the concepts covered in traditional onboarding may need to be covered again when an employee moves to a new job within your organization, according to Dr. Stefaniak.
“If you’re trying to engage in career development with your employees, sometimes you need to revisit the fundamentals regarding your organization’s mission and vision, especially if they’re looking at those things from a different perspective in their new roles,” says Stefaniak. “What might have been important in one particular role, we might see from a completely different lens in another role.”
Internal onboarding and the skills-based organization
Internal onboarding may look a bit different for skills-based organizations, which place skills — rather than roles and job descriptions — at the center of their approach to work. Because a skills-based organization sees a job as a collection of skills, employees may not exactly be moving between jobs but instead be assuming new responsibilities or moving to another area of a company.
In this case, onboarding may focus on the culture of that new area, or on the skills an employee may want to learn in order to assume new assignments. Onboarding might include finding a mentor for the employee and setting goals that align with their desired career path.
However, for skills-based organizations to onboard employees properly, it’s important that they know which skills employees have already, and how developed those skills are.
“In an ideal situation, you would have an employee profile on everyone,” says Stefaniak. “In annual reviews you might say ‘we’ve evaluated you on these particular skills, do you think this is an accurate assessment? Where do you see opportunities for yourself? Are there certain skills you want to explore and enhance over this next year or two?’”
What does internal onboarding look like for your organization?
Most of us are familiar with traditional onboarding: an employee is hired, does pre-onboarding paperwork, receives access to the organization’s tools and resources, goes through orientation, and starts long-term onboarding training, which may include specific modules and long-term goal setting. How different is internal onboarding, especially for a lateral move, which may not include specialized learning, like management training?
It might help to think of internal onboarding as a lightweight form of employee onboarding; your existing employees are already in your systems, and depending on their new role, they may or may not need to review your mission, or your culture.
Instead, L&D can look at the employee’s specific transition and decide which onboarding gaps need to be filled. You can ask the following questions to guide your internal mobility onboarding:
- What sort of introduction does the employee need to their new department?
- Does that new department have a different perspective on the organization’s mission or culture?
- Are there new compliance issues that apply to the employee’s new role?
- Does the employee need to be provisioned for any additional platforms or systems they’ll be using in their new role?
It’s a slightly more tailored approach than the standard initial onboarding for a new employee and can be integrated with reskilling training and goal setting, which is a key part of the internal onboarding process, according to Stefaniak.
“This includes the different types of mentorship and employee development that can occur outside of L&D, and it’s just as important [as conventional onboarding],” she said. “It includes conversations with your peers, with your supervisor or manager, so that you really understand the goals you’re setting.”
Goal setting also allows for a longer-term onboarding process, including check-ins with managers and supervisors over time, which offers extra support to internal employees in their new roles.
Should your organization have an internal onboarding process?
Having a strategic internal onboarding process in place at your organization can ensure that internal hires are well-prepared and supported.
We often think of onboarding for new hires as the key to boosting employee productivity and retention; but focusing on the onboarding needs of internal hires is also critical for facilitating smooth transitions that can ultimately lead to better job satisfaction and longer tenures amongst your more seasoned employees.
By being intentional about internal onboarding, your organization can foster a culture that values internal mobility and continuous learning and development.