Internal mobility is failing before learning can help

MG Consulting Group points to a staffing problem that starts before any learning intervention. In SHRM's 2025 benchmark, only 7 percent of non executive positions were filled internally. If that is even directionally true in your context, the first question is not how to create more learning. It is why capability already on payroll is not turning into staffing decisions.

MG Consulting Group also cites TalentLMS 2026 research saying 50 percent of respondents work in organizations that hire externally for skills existing employees already have. It cites 49 percent of employees saying their skills are underused. Those figures do not show the cause in any one company. They do make it harder to assume the main issue is a lack of training.

A better test is in the hiring workflow. In the same role family, when people complete role relevant development, do they get serious consideration for adjacent openings, or do external candidates still win by default? If internal candidates are not making it into real contention, more content, another academy or a broader upskilling push can raise completion and leave deployment untouched.

That changes where I would put the next dollar. The likely break is between the evidence that someone can do the work and the point where a hiring manager chooses a candidate. Managers may not trust the skills data. Experience filters may screen people out before their capability is weighed. Career paths help only if they give managers enough confidence to move someone into the role.

The cost is larger than wasted learning spend. The company keeps hiring from outside for work it may already be able to staff, while employees with relevant capability stay where they are. In that situation, the next fix sits in the talent process and manager incentives before it sits in L&D.

Ownership follows the bottleneck. The CHRO is accountable for whether the talent system can surface people and move them. The CLO's job is narrower and more important than reporting completions: show whether development leads to movement. Business leaders shape the manager economics, especially when losing talent hurts a local leader more than it helps the enterprise. That is often where mobility stalls.

MG Consulting Group does not show that one solution works across the market, and examples such as Bank of America or Unilever show that better internal mobility is possible, not automatic. I would not treat this as proof that external hiring is overused everywhere. I would treat it as a reason to question any plan that assumes the main bottleneck is learning supply before checking whether the company can identify, validate and redeploy capability it already has.