Internal mobility has become a critical component of modern talent strategy. It assists organizations in optimizing their workforce, retaining top performers, and ensuring that key roles are filled with the right people.
In our last post, we covered what internal mobility is and the top 6 reasons to implement it into your workforce strategy. Today, we dive deeper into how you can visualize internal mobility data with Sankey charts and diagrams in Crunchr.
These powerful tools provide a detailed view of talent flow within an organization, such as employee transitions between roles, career professions, or relocations. Let’s get into it.
Sankey diagrams are highly effective for visualizing employee movement because they illustrate flows between categories—departments, locations, job grades, or business units. The width of the lines in a Sankey chart reflects the volume of movement, giving HR professionals an intuitive way to spot trends and anomalies at a glance.
Understanding how employees move through the organization is critical for HR professionals who oversee internal mobility. Sankey diagrams help track transitions across various dimensions—functions, regions, business units, or even salary grades—while allowing us to filter and even dig deeper into specific data points.
For example, take a look at the visualization below, which shows how employees move between different functional areas in an organization over a specific time period. ⬇️
One of the unique features of Crunchr’s platform is the flexibility of its mobility chart. In Crunchr, you can switch between the visually impactful Sankey diagram and a more detailed table view with the click of a button.
This feature provides multiple ways to analyze movement patterns quickly and effectively. Whether you prefer the broad overview provided by the diagram or the granular detail shown in a table, this flexibility is crucial for managing internal mobility data.
A quick switch to the table can help spot patterns or anomalies in the data, and then a return to the Sankey diagram can visualize these trends.
Here are five specific use cases demonstrating how HR professionals can confidently utilize Crunchr’s Sankey diagrams to unlock valuable insights into internal mobility:
One of the most powerful features of Sankey charts is their ability to highlight anomalies. For instance, if an employee is promoted from grade 5 to grade 15—a jump akin to going from an associate to senior vice president—this is probably something worth investigating.
Tracking movement across grades, functions, or regions can identify irregularities in promotions, salary grades, or relocations. For example, the diagram could reveal a low-performance individual moving between continents, prompting you to question the costs and reasoning behind this decision.
These days, external hiring is often limited, meaning organizations often look inward to fill critical roles. Even in companies without formalized skills data, Crunchr’s Sankey diagrams can reveal internal trends indicating whether talent is already transitioning into roles crucial for future growth.
To put this into perspective, let’s say you notice that a significant number of employees have already moved from sales to marketing or from finance to HR. You might have a robust internal talent pool that could fill upcoming vacancies. You can see who made these transitions and reach out to them for insight into their career trajectory.
Sankey diagrams also provide HR teams with an easy way to track employees’ leadership potential.
By visualizing how top performers move across different roles, departments, or regions, you can assess whether someone excels only in one area or shows versatility across various domains.
The “3×3×3 Rule” is an excellent model of this: a leader who thrives across three functions, three regions, or three business units demonstrates leadership potential that transcends specific job types. For instance, an employee might excel in sales, but how do they perform in finance or operations? They may be a star in Europe, but how do they adapt when working in South America, where management styles and market dynamics differ?
Sankey diagrams help track this development and can reveal patterns of success that might not otherwise be visible through traditional reporting methods like Excel or PowerPoint.
Some leaders or departments are known for being “talent providers,” consistently developing and producing top-tier employees who move on to take larger roles elsewhere in the organization. Others, however, may be “talent consumers,” benefiting from this movement but not contributing to talent development within their own teams.
Crunchr’s Sankey diagrams make it easy to visualize these flows, helping HR teams identify which leaders or departments are investing in talent development and which are simply absorbing top talent. By examining these trends, you can create more balanced talent pipelines and ensure that leadership actively supports internal mobility.
Finally, Crunchr’s Sankey diagrams are invaluable tools for HR business partners when providing career advice to employees.
For instance, if a flight attendant in grade 10 wants to transition to a new role within the company but doesn’t want to fly anymore, HR can use the Sankey diagram to visualize past career moves and suggest viable options. By filtering for specific transitions, HR can guide employees based on actual historical data, helping them navigate potential career paths.
Crunchr’s Sankey diagram generator is built for HR professionals looking to visualize and easily explore internal mobility trends. Here’s how it works:
The Sankey diagrams in Crunchr stand out for their HR-specific focus and ease of use:
Crunchr’s Sankey diagrams offer more than data visualization—they provide deeper insights into talent movement within your organization.
Whether you’re spotting anomalies, tracking leadership development, or providing clear career paths for employees, Crunchr’s Sankey diagrams offer the transparency and flexibility HR teams need to make informed decisions.
Ready to see how Crunchr can help you visualize internal mobility? 💬 Chat with us today. And if you missed the first post in our internal mobility series, check it out here to learn more about the foundations of internal mobility.