Which Companies Promote Most From Within?

Every company faces a choice of where to source their management team: from within the company or from outside? The implications of this choice are enormous. Leaders that are groomed internally already know the business and can easily fit within the corporate culture. However, leaders from outside often come with more proven track records.

In the figure below we see how the share of senior employees who were internally promoted has evolved over time, showing a steep increase in the most recent periods.

Given that companies are moving towards promoting internally, we next look at which companies are leading in this trend. The figure below shows the companies with highest and lowest shares of internal promoted senior positions.

Key Takeaways:

• The share of senior management that were promoted internally has been steadily rising in recent years.
• Target, Caterpillar, and ExxonMobil have surprisingly high rates of internal mobility. As expected, the US AirForce is also among the highest.
• Apple, Google, and AWS are among the top tech companies that are falling behind in promoting internally.

If you have any ideas of other metrics to track or would like to hear more, please feel free to reach out.