16 Oct How AI Can Help Global Mobility Teams Uncover Hidden Skills
In a world obsessed with recruiting the next big hire, companies may be overlooking their best candidates — the ones already on their payroll. For global mobility specialists, whose work traditionally revolves around relocating high-performing employees across borders, this shift in mindset could be transformative.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is now surfacing capabilities long hidden in corporate silos, helping organizations match existing employees’ skills with open opportunities. As rigid hierarchies give way to fluid, project-based work, a new model is taking hold: the AI-powered internal talent marketplace.
According to Gartner, 30 percent of large enterprises will deploy talent marketplaces by the end of 2025. The goal isn’t just to find new talent — it’s to liberate the potential within.
Global mobility programs have always been about putting the right people in the right places. But what if those people are already in the organization, sitting halfway across the world, waiting for someone to notice?
Historically, internal mobility meant moving employees permanently into new full-time roles — a slow and bureaucratic process. Today, AI-driven systems can map each employee’s technical and soft skills, career aspirations, and adjacent strengths, identifying candidates for short-term global projects without the need for traditional transfers.
How AI is surfacing hidden potential
Internal talent marketplaces (ITMs) use AI to analyze employees’ skills and performance data, then recommend projects, mentors, or cross-functional assignments that fit their potential. The technology even uncovers skill adjacencies — those unspoken connections that suggest someone could excel in a role they’ve never formally held.
Research from the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) found that half of all managers resist internal movement, particularly in lower-performing organizations. Yet companies that implement ITMs report higher retention and engagement. According to LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report, employees who change roles internally are 3.5 times more likely to stay than those who don’t.
For global mobility teams, that insight is a breakthrough. Instead of focusing solely on relocating external recruits or senior executives, they can now map skill clusters across borders — connecting overlooked employees with international projects that align with both business and personal growth.
Why overlooked talent stays overlooked
Despite the promise of internal mobility, cultural barriers remain. Managers often hoard talent for fear of losing high performers, while employees assume that career growth means leaving for another company.
This mindset hits underrepresented groups hardest. Women are 50 percent more likely than men to say they lack visibility into internal opportunities, according to i4cp. Yet companies that have adopted ITMs see women engaging more frequently in cross-functional projects — narrowing the advancement gap.
For mobility specialists, that data changes everything. Relocation no longer has to mean crossing oceans. It can mean connecting an overlooked engineer in Manila to a project in Silicon Valley or pairing a London marketer with a regional assignment in Singapore — all without leaving the company.
From relocation to reallocation
As work becomes increasingly borderless, the definition of “mobility” itself is evolving. The future may be less about physical moves and more about strategic reallocation — moving talent, not just people.
An energy company profiled by i4cp’s Talent Mobility Research saved over $14 million by redeploying existing staff to short-term projects instead of hiring externally, unlocking hundreds of thousands of productive hours.
That kind of reallocation — supported by AI insights — allows global mobility teams to redeploy in-house talent swiftly, improving utilization while cutting relocation and recruiting costs.
Three steps mobility leaders can take now
- Adopt a “look inside first” policy.
Before sponsoring a relocation or external hire, ensure that internal searches run through your talent marketplace. The Human Capital Institute reports that only 61 percent of organizations have such a policy. - Champion cultural change.
Partner with HR to reframe mobility as an opportunity for growth, not loss. Recognize and reward managers who share talent across departments and geographies. - Pilot cross-border project assignments.
Launch an ITM pilot within global teams already comfortable with hybrid work. Collect data, refine policies, and scale as adoption grows.
Beyond HR: marketplaces are reshaping operations
The internal-marketplace concept is expanding beyond talent. Some firms now use AI-driven platforms to manage professional service providers and R&D partners, creating unified ecosystems for collaboration. Companies like SpotSource streamline vendor selection and performance tracking, while Accenture and ETS are building AI-powered platforms that measure, credential, and match skills to global work opportunities.
Even in sectors like real estate, the ripple effect is evident. In California, corporate housing demand has surged alongside the rise of flexible assignments in the tech and film industries — signaling that short-term, project-based mobility is reshaping not only HR but entire local economies.
The new frontier: rediscovering your own workforce
The takeaway for global mobility professionals is clear: in a talent market defined by scarcity, the smartest move isn’t always outward. It’s inward.
Next-generation learning and talent systems, like Accenture’s LearnVantage, are shifting from “finding” workers to measuring and matching existing skills. When mobility leaders tap into these ecosystems, they don’t just move people — they move potential.
As the World Economic Forum warns that half of the global workforce will need reskilling by 2030, the pressure is on to make every employee count. By embracing internal talent marketplaces, mobility professionals can help their organizations unlock hidden capacity, promote equity, and keep great people growing — wherever in the world they may already be.