The job market is flooded with eager workers who want to prove themselves to employers willing to hire them, but many businesses still see a talent gap that is hard to plug. A report from EY suggests a familiar solution to the problem—employee mobility. HR’s challenge of talent shortage is often tackled by hiring from outside with the promise of competitive benefits to keep candidates hooked for as long as possible. While a stacked wad of cash often does do the trick, there’s something more rewarding about the active retention of top talent.
Employee mobility is extremely beneficial for any organization as it ensures that key roles are filled by qualified employees who know the business best. Not only that, the employee mobility trends observed in the report suggest that those with evolved programs for mobility are likely to achieve 10% revenue growth. Throw in the promise of a fulfilling, long-lasting career, and you can expect that employee retention will never be an issue for your business again.
Employee mobility can be a win for both employers and employees. HR wins by default. (Image: Pexels)
Employee Mobility Might Be the Best Solution to the Talent Shortage in 2025
Let’s set the stage with some stats. EY’s 2025 Mobility Reimagined Survey found that 48% of employers are struggling to find global talent and 74% struggle with delays when it comes to filling in senior roles at the organization. From the numbers, it is obvious that companies that are serious about filling their organization with talented, expert candidates face a real challenge in finding and hiring these specific individuals.
This is particularly relevant for senior roles, as these positions are critical to the functioning of the entire organization. If delayed for too long, it could put the overall progress of the business at risk.
Companies are slowly but surely making a bold shift to becoming “AI-first” businesses, and while there are many reasons for this change, many cite talent shortages as the prime reason. While there is a vast talent gap to be seen in the workforce, there are multiple ways to solve the problem that go unaddressed.
Turning to AI as the answer instead of the tool to find the answer leaves businesses vulnerable to the many shortcomings of this technology that are still being discovered.
How Is Mobility Relevant to the Talent Shortage?
The relationship between employee mobility and the talent gap is an obvious one but it is a connection that is often ignored. Employees who successfully make it into an organization often do so because they have relevant skills and expertise that align with the business.
Throughout their employment, they are also trained to understand the business and its internal workings and thus grow familiar with how it operates. Keeping them around helps ensure their knowledge is put to use, even if they outgrow their current roles. Employee mobility also facilitates upskilling and reskilling, ensuring that the talent present at the organization is best suited to grow with the company.
Facilitating cross-border employee movement enables the company to hold onto the talent for longer, deploying skilled workers to increasingly important roles and positions. Seeing as the report also found that employee mobility can be linked to revenue growth, there is even more reason to use mobility as the solution to talent gaps.
Employee Mobility Also Helps with Retention and Attraction
Going back to the numbers, the EY report found that 85% of the respondents said mobility assignments can be transformative, with 48% confessing that such experiences increased the likelihood that they would stay with their employers.
Workers who are promised a long career at the organization are often inclined to stay and build their careers there, rather than meander about from organization to organization in hopes of career growth.
Generative AI Is a Powerful Tool That Can Transform Employee Mobility
While AI is often seen as the easiest of the talent gap solutions to follow through with, it might be too soon to start replacing workers with AI tools. Does that mean employers should abandon AI exploration entirely? Not necessarily. There is room to use AI as a means to an end, aiding in structuring and planning employee productivity and mobility.
The 2025 Mobility Reimagined Survey found that mobility professionals are growing more comfortable with the idea of embracing GenAI in their work, with 70% “believing it will positively impact their functions, influencing flexible working, employee productivity, and risk management.”
While these AI tools handle some of the repetitive tasks, mobility professionals can instead focus on the talent shortages and address the issue at a more involved level when informing HR teams. This division of responsibility is a fair compromise between human effort and machine-powered initiative, and it’s something we should see across industries and fields. This does come with a caveat—employees need to know how to use these AI tools correctly in order to get the most out of them.
Addressing talent shortages in 2025 goes beyond firing employees and looking for new talent. Instead, it focuses more on retaining workers and giving them a chance to grow together.
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