What would disprove this analysis? (Criterion 1)

Internal mobility programs do not reduce manager investment in employee development

What would disprove this analysis? (Criterion 2)

Managers actively support transfers without informal blocking in majority of cases

What would disprove this analysis? (Criterion 3)

Teams maintain productivity and knowledge continuity through internal transfers

When should you avoid internal mobility poaching conflict?

You haven't solved the manager incentive problem — losing people must not hurt managers. Your teams are too small to absorb transfer-related knowledge loss

What are alternatives?

Rotation programs: Structured, time-limited cross-team exposure without permanent transfers. 20% time projects: Cross-team collaboration without leaving the home team. Manager development incentives: Explicitly reward managers whose reports grow and advance

Catalog

O026

Organizations

Internal Mobility Poaching Conflict

MEDIUM(75%)

February 2026

3 sources

Context

Companies promote internal mobility programs to retain talent and reduce hiring costs. HR builds internal job boards, encourages cross-team transfers, and celebrates internal moves as career development. But the system creates perverse incentives at the manager level. Managers who invest in developing employees lose them to other teams. High performers become targets for internal poaching. Managers respond by hoarding talent, blocking transfers, or stopping investment in employee growth. The program designed to retain talent at the company level destroys talent development at the team level.

Hypothesis

What people believe

“Internal mobility programs retain talent and reduce external hiring costs.”

Actual Chain

→

Managers lose best people to internal transfers(Top performers transfer first)

└

Managers stop investing in employee development

└

Managers hoard information to make employees less transferable

→

Internal poaching creates team instability(Receiving teams gain, sending teams suffer)

└

Knowledge transfer gaps as employees move

└

Remaining team members absorb extra workload

└

Project continuity disrupted by mid-cycle transfers

→

Managers game the system to block transfers(Informal blocking despite official policy)

└

Employees discover mobility is theoretical, not actual

└

Trust in HR programs erodes

Impact

Metric	Before	After	Delta
Manager investment in development	Active coaching	Reduced to avoid losing people	Significant decline
Internal transfer success rate	Expected: high	30-40% blocked informally	-30-40%
Team stability	Stable	Disrupted by transfers	Reduced

Navigation

Don't If

•You haven't solved the manager incentive problem — losing people must not hurt managers
•Your teams are too small to absorb transfer-related knowledge loss

If You Must

1.Reward managers for developing people who transfer — make it a positive metric
2.Require minimum tenure before transfer eligibility to protect team investments
3.Build structured handoff processes to minimize knowledge loss during transfers

Alternatives

Rotation programs — Structured, time-limited cross-team exposure without permanent transfers
20% time projects — Cross-team collaboration without leaving the home team
Manager development incentives — Explicitly reward managers whose reports grow and advance

Falsifiability

This analysis is wrong if:

Internal mobility programs do not reduce manager investment in employee development
Managers actively support transfers without informal blocking in majority of cases
Teams maintain productivity and knowledge continuity through internal transfers

Sources

1.
Harvard Business Review: The Talent Curse
Documents manager hoarding behavior in internal mobility programs
2.
Gartner: Internal Mobility Research
Data on internal transfer rates and manager blocking patterns
3.
Deloitte: Internal Talent Marketplace Report
Analysis of internal mobility program outcomes and challenges

O006 O010