The impact of internal mobility on retention is one of the most well-documented findings in workforce research.

LinkedIn has reported that employees stay 41% longer at companies with high internal mobility, regardless of what those companies pay, and our 2026 Education Index found that 77% of employees would prefer to stay with their current employer if clear internal advancement opportunities existed.

Yet despite the evidence, most organizations aren't getting it done, which can result in stalled internal mobility. When that happens, organizations lose the ability to fill critical roles from within, weaken their bench strength for succession planning, and spend more on external hiring. Some estimates suggest organizations save approximately $7,500 more per hire in training and onboarding costs when they fill a role internally rather than externally.

Fuel50 reports that 74% of organizations struggle to fill roles internally, and that organizations are struggling with both retention and attracting new talent.

So why is it happening?

In this post, we'll talk about why internal mobility stalls despite some organizations' best efforts and how education benefits can be an invaluable solution to fix your talent pipeline.

How stalled mobility drives turnover, disengagement, and talent loss

When internal mobility falters, there are both visible and hidden costs you need to account for.

The most immediate risk is losing the employees you want to hold onto most. DDI's Global Leadership Forecast found that high-potential talent is nearly four times more likely to leave if their manager doesn't regularly provide opportunities for growth and development.

The less visible cost is stagnation. When employees can't see a path forward, engagement drops, innovation slows, and the organization loses the adaptive capacity it needs to keep pace with change.

Download The 2026 Education Index for research behind the mobility cliff and how it’s stalling internal mobility.

Why organizations struggle to facilitate internal mobility

When organizations struggle to build internal talent pipelines, the issue isn’t necessarily a lack of interest from employees or investment from employers. In many cases, it’s a structural issue that stems from a lack of opportunities for employees to apply the new skills they’re learning.

Learning is producing value, but not always mobility. Among surveyed adults who had taken job-related coursework, 50% said it helped them develop new skills for their current role, while 40% said those skills helped advance their career. That distinction matters: improving performance in an existing role is not the same as creating a path to the next one.

We’ve found that many organizations have built their learning infrastructure and their advancement infrastructure separately, and the gap between the two is where employees start feeling stuck.

L&D and talent management operate in silos

In most organizations, internal mobility often spans Talent Management, L&D, Talent Acquisition, Benefits, HR business partners, and individual business units. When no one owns the end-to-end connection between workforce needs, learning programs, career pathways, and internal hiring, each function can optimize its own activity without improving mobility overall.

Talent management teams often have direct visibility into the skill gaps that are creating bottlenecks in the pipeline. They can see which roles are hard to fill, where there are gaps in skill competencies, and where succession planning is struggling to keep up.

But when talent management and L&D aren't sharing that intelligence, learning programs get built around general development priorities rather than the specific gaps that are preventing internal mobility. L&D ends up training employees in skills the organization doesn't urgently need, while the roles that could be filled internally stay open because no one is building a pathway to them

Skills visibility is worse than leaders think

Even when organizations invest in workforce development, they often lack a clear picture of what skills their employees actually have and how those skills could be best applied. And ultimately, you can’t move employees into new roles if you don’t know the skills employees currently have and the adjacent roles they may be prepared to pursue.

Fuel50’s data highlighted this issue clearly, finding that 92% of HR leaders believe they have sufficient visibility into their workforce's skills, but 78% say their skills mapping is outdated or nonexistent.

Employees don't know where to start

Your employees’ motivation is there, but they likely don’t know how to actually start.

Our 2026 Education Index found that 47% of employees don't know where to begin when it comes to developing the right skills for career advancement, and 71% wish their employer provided clear steps to reach the next role or job level. 

That means that even your most ambitious employees may not realize they have available upskilling opportunities, which means any benefits you offer could go unused. Education benefits that are clearly connected to role requirements and career pathways can make a big difference here.

Download the 2026 Education Index, the Mobility Cliff, to learn what employees need to turn skill building into career advancement.

How to use education benefits to improve internal mobility — and your talent pipeline

The mobility cliff exists because learning and advancement operate separately. Education benefits, when designed strategically, are one of the most effective ways to connect the two.

Here's what that looks like in practice:

• ●Connect education programs to defined career pathways. Don't just offer a course catalog. Map learning opportunities to specific roles, so employees can see exactly how a credential or degree moves them toward their next position.
• ●Equip managers to refer to available support. Managers don't need to be career experts or coaches. They need to know what programs are available and how to connect employees to the right resources. Career Resource Toolkits, one-pagers, and expert coaching partners make this scalable.
• ●Make pathways visible organization-wide. Employees can't pursue opportunities they can't see. Treat education benefits like a product launch, with regular internal communications, leadership endorsement, and easy-to-find information.
• ●Use stackable, skills-based learning. Not every employee needs a four-year degree. Stackable certificates and targeted coursework create incremental progress that keeps employees engaged and moving forward.
• ●Bring in expert support. EdAssist® by Bright Horizons® helps employers connect education benefits to real career pathways, so upskilling turns into internal mobility instead of just completed programs. Through workforce-aligned program design, degree and non-degree learning options, and expert coaching, EdAssist helps organizations build the bridge between learning and advancement.

Turn upskilling into internal mobility

Internal mobility improves when learning and career advancement operate as one connected function. That means determining what skill gaps exist in your organization and how you can close them with the right training.

The right education assistance programs can help with this. Not only can these programs help employees upskill, but they can be developed alongside your business priorities. Then, you can give managers the tools to connect people with resources instead of asking them to be career coaches, and making career pathways visible enough that employees can navigate them on their own.

The shift doesn't require a full transformation of your talent strategy, but it does require you to break down the silos between the teams that know where the skill gaps are and the teams building the programs to close them.

Want to upskill your workforce to improve internal mobility? Explore how EdAssist can help connect education benefits with workforce priorities, career pathways, and the skills required for critical roles.