Upward Mobility | Meaning and Definition

What is Upward Mobility?

Upward mobility in the world of HRM refers to the opportunity offered to the employees to move up through the company to gain roles of higher responsibilities. It enhances the employee potential within an organization and also plays a crucial role in employee retention. Upward mobility intends to deliver necessary growth opportunities and training facilities to workers, particularly to underutilized and underdeveloped resources. These employees haven’t been able to utilize their maximum potential, and their raw talent requires further support and training in professional settings. The organization trains, upskills, and hires managers from the company itself and then works on optimizing the skill set of the human resources.

Thus, employees climb a ladder of greater job positions within an organization. A scenario that is in contrast with upward mobility would be that of a company that never promotes people to higher positions from within the enterprise. The existing employees stay stuck in the roles where they were originally hired. It is considerable off-putting for employees as such a system does not allow them to actualize their maximum potential, and thus, such companies may often experience low employee retention rates as well.

Moreover, the HR department of an organization is responsible for keeping employees motivated and engaged and helping them visualize a successful prospect within the company. The best practices here would include succession planning, leadership and development programs, training, upskilling programs, internal hiring, mentoring programs, and staff rotations. On top of this, proactive employers usually are on the lookout for employees that add diversity to the workforce and ascertain the availability of advancement opportunities in the workplace.