Vertical and horizontal
Progressing to greater responsibility, or moving to another role or department where existing qualities can be applied differently.
Blog 16
Cyclical career development drives internal mobility
Trend 7 · HR trends 2026
Cyclical career development drives internal mobility
From a career path to continuous movement: development becomes an ongoing process that connects talent with the work the organisation will need next.
Careers were long described as a sequence of recognisable roles and promotions. That model gave employees and organisations a sense of direction.
But work is changing faster than a linear career path can keep up with. AI is shifting tasks, new roles are emerging and existing jobs require different combinations of technical and human skills. At the same time, despite cooling in 2025, the Dutch labour market remains tight by historical standards, with substantial differences between sectors and regions. 2 3
This changes the central question for HR. It is no longer only: what is your next role? More importantly: which next step suits your talent and development, as well as what the organisation will need in the future?
39%
of workers’ current core skills are expected by employers surveyed worldwide to change or become outdated between 2025 and 2030. This is an expectation, not a predetermined outcome. 1
In this article
Why career development is becoming cyclical
A job profile mainly describes what is needed today. Tomorrow’s workforce requirements, however, increasingly arise from a different distribution of tasks within existing roles. The International Labour Organization estimates that one quarter of global employment is in occupations with some degree of exposure to generative AI. Its researchers emphasise that transformation is more likely than complete replacement. 2
When tasks change, organisations do not have to create an entirely new role or find an external candidate for every emerging need. They can redesign work, develop employees purposefully and enable moves into growing roles. In the Future of Jobs Report 2025, 51% of employers surveyed say they intend to transition employees from declining to growing roles; 47% expect to move people from roles affected by AI into other positions. 4
The relevant unit of career development is no longer only the job, but the
combination of people, skills, work and development direction.
From job profiles to a talent and skills perspective
Traditionally, HR starts with a position: which competencies does it require, and to what extent does someone meet the profile? Cyclical career policy adds a second perspective: which qualities, skills and development opportunities does this person have, and where could these add value within the organisation?
Looking only at a person’s current job title, formal experience and education can obscure transferable qualities. Analytical ability may be relevant across several disciplines; the ability to connect people may emerge in leadership, customer contact or transformation projects.
The World Economic Forum identifies resilience, flexibility and agility as the clearest distinguishing skills between growing and declining roles. Technological literacy, programming and analytical thinking also make a marked difference. 1 This supports using the language of skills alongside the language of jobs. Qualifications, professional knowledge and experience remain important, but they do not provide the complete picture.
Mobility means more than promotion
When growth is seen exclusively as an upward move, much of the available development space remains unused. In a cyclical model, different forms of movement are valuable, provided they suit the employee and contribute to employability or organisational goals.
Project-based and skills-based
Contributing temporarily to a project, multidisciplinary team or internal assignment based on skills, without immediately changing permanent role.
Growth within the current role
Developing new expertise, tasks or responsibilities. Movement can also mean learning to perform the current role differently or more broadly.
This broader definition also enables small, reversible steps: job shadowing, job crafting, mentoring, temporary assignments and learning projects. Such experiences reveal what fits and what still requires development.
The internal mobility paradox
For a manager, losing a strong employee to another team can feel like a short-term setback. This can lead to talent hoarding: people are valued, but given little room to move internally. Employees who see no internal prospects may pursue their preferred next step outside the organisation.
LinkedIn platform data show an association between high internal mobility and longer employee tenure. The Workplace Learning Report 2025 also found that internal mobility had become a higher priority for roughly half of the learning professionals surveyed. 5 6 These findings do not prove that internal mobility itself causes retention. Learning culture, leadership and career prospects may all play a part.
Leadership should therefore be assessed more broadly than by the staffing of an individual team. A talent coach helps employees progress, shares people and knowledge across the organisation and discusses succession early.
Not: how do we hold on to this employee? But: how can this employee continue
to develop within our organisation?
From annual conversation to continuous cycle
An annual development conversation remains useful, but is insufficient as the only moment of reflection. Cyclical career development creates a shorter feedback loop in which every step produces new information.
- Insight: make talent, motivation, energy and skills visible.
- Development: learn purposefully towards a preferred direction.
- Movement: gain experience through work, projects or another role.
- Reflection: explore what practice reveals about the fit.
- Renewed insight: adjust the direction and repeat the cycle.
The organisation connects this individual cycle with strategic workforce planning: which activities are increasing or decreasing, which skills are scarce and where can employees gain experience safely? This creates an ongoing dialogue between personal direction and future organisational needs.
Six actions for HR
Cyclical career development requires more than a catalogue of training courses. HR builds an infrastructure in which talent is visible, opportunities are discoverable and movement is genuinely permitted.
- Make talent visible periodicallyDiscuss motivation, energy, transferable skills, potential and development direction alongside performance.
- Connect work and skillsTranslate strategic workforce planning into specific roles, tasks and capabilities.
- Make internal opportunities transparentPublish vacancies, projects, temporary assignments, job-shadowing opportunities, mentoring and learning pathways.
- Give employees agency and guidanceLet people express their preferences, while ensuring opportunities are not limited to the most vocal employees.
- Make talent sharing part of leadershipReward managers for development, succession and organisation-wide mobility as well.
- Measure the quality of movementLook beyond the number of moves to accessibility, choice, learning outcomes and sustainable employability.
The use of talent data and AI also requires a clear boundary: a profile is input for dialogue, not an automated career decision. Transparency, human judgement, privacy and checks for unintended exclusion should therefore be built into the process.
How Voice Your Future can support
Cyclical career development starts with language for what often remains implicit: natural qualities, energy, drivers, learning style, communication and development opportunities. Without this insight, conversations can easily remain confined to a person’s current role or desired job title.
Voice Your Future’s voice analysis translates a short voice recording into a personal profile offering insight into personality, self-image, learning style and competencies. According to Voice Your Future, Amsterdam UMC investigated the method’s reproducibility and its comparison with validated reference instruments. 7 The Voice Experience AI coach can support reflection and help translate insights into development questions and potential next steps.
Its value does not lie in prescribing a single correct route. An analysis can deepen the conversation alongside experience, performance, ambitions, feedback and the context of the work. This creates a broader starting point for reconnecting the individual, the role and the organisation.
Conclusion: make careers mobile, not directionless
Cyclical career development does not mean that jobs, experience or long-term choices disappear. It means that organisations assess more frequently whether people, skills and work still fit together, and create room for development or movement in good time.
The central HR question shifts from who fits this vacancy? to which next step strengthens this employee and the future organisation? This requires insight into talent, transparent opportunities and managers willing to support development beyond their own team.
Organisations that organise this well increase their ability to retain knowledge, develop scarce skills and offer employees perspective. Those that restrict movement risk discovering talent only when it moves elsewhere.
Do not wait for talent to move. Make movement possible.
Make internal talent visible sooner
Discover how Voice Your Future can deepen conversations about talent, development and suitable next steps within your organisation.
Sources
The figures and analyses in this article are based on the publications below.
- World Economic Forum. The Future of Jobs Report 2025 – Skills outlook.
- International Labour Organization and NASK. Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure (2025).
- Statistics Netherlands. De vraag naar arbeid – De arbeidsmarkt in cijfers 2025 [Demand for labour – Labour Market in Figures 2025] (2026).
- World Economic Forum. The Future of Jobs Report 2025 – Workforce strategies.
- LinkedIn Learning. Workplace Learning Report 2025.
- LinkedIn Talent Solutions. New LinkedIn Data: How Internal Mobility Benefits Employers (2024).
- Voice Your Future. We make your talent visible, accessed 21 September 2026.
