Lateral Moves in Remote Teams: When They Work

Key Takeaways

• Lateral moves can be as powerful as promotions in remote teams, boosting engagement, skills, and retention without changing pay or title.
• Internal mobility drives retention, MIT Sloan research shows it’s 12× more predictive of staying than promotions and 2.5× more than compensation.
• Benefits go beyond morale: they strengthen cross-functional collaboration, diversify skills, and prepare future leaders.
• Not all moves succeed, misaligned goals, poor onboarding, and lack of clear progression can undermine the outcome.
• To make them work, map career lattices, provide structured onboarding, celebrate moves publicly, test fit with short-term projects, and give internal candidates first priority.

Maria, a remote marketing specialist, felt stuck. Promotions were far off, and routine was draining her energy. Her manager offered a lateral move into product support, same level, with new challenges. Within months, she was re-energized, spotting recurring issues, improving campaigns, and bridging gaps between teams. She stayed two more years, delivering more value than ever.

In remote teams, this kind of “sideways” shift can be more powerful than a promotion for keeping top performers engaged.

What Is a Lateral Move (and How It Looks in Remote Work)

A lateral move is when an employee transitions into a different role or department at the same organizational level. It’s not about a title change or pay bump, it’s about skill expansion, fresh challenges, and career variety.

In remote teams, examples include:

• A marketing specialist moving into product support to deepen customer understanding.
• A customer service representative shifting into QA to strengthen quality processes.
• A data analyst joining the product analytics team to apply skills in a new context.

In essence, lateral moves in distributed teams help employees break monotony, expand networks, and gain skills that are harder to acquire when siloed in one function.

For more on internal role changes, see our guide on employee transfers.

Why Lateral Moves Matter More in Remote Teams

In co-located offices, career growth opportunities are often visible through daily interactions with leaders and peers. In remote setups, that visibility shrinks. Without clear growth pathways, employees may assume they need to leave to progress.

The data backs this up:

• MIT Sloan research found that lateral career opportunities are 12× more predictive of retention than promotions and 2.5× more predictive than compensation.
• LinkedIn reports that employees who make a lateral move have a 62% chance of staying after three years, compared to 70% for promotions and just 45% for those who stay in the same role (LinkedIn Talent Solutions).
• Despite the benefits, only 10% of job opportunities are filled via internal lateral hires, an underused retention lever (MIT Sloan Management Review).

In remote teams, lateral mobility counters isolation and helps employees see a future without leaving the organization.

The Business Upside: When Lateral Moves Pay Off

Handled well, lateral moves are a high-ROI retention strategy. Benefits include:

1. Retention Boost

High performers are often the first to leave when growth stalls. Lateral opportunities give them fresh challenges without the wait for an open senior role, keeping critical talent in-house and protecting institutional knowledge. MIT Sloan research shows that internal mobility can be over 12× more predictive of retention than promotions.

2. Cross-Functional Collaboration

In dispersed teams, silos form quickly. Lateral moves inject fresh perspectives into departments, fostering shared problem-solving and reducing “us vs. them” mentalities. This is particularly valuable in global teams where cultural and time zone differences can fragment collaboration.

3. Skill Diversification

By rotating through different functions, employees build broader skill sets, technical, operational, and interpersonal that make the workforce more agile. When priorities shift (as they often do in startups and scaleups), these adaptable employees can pivot faster and with less training cost.

4. Leadership Pipeline

Future leaders need more than deep expertise, they need a panoramic view of the business. Lateral moves expose employees to diverse challenges, stakeholder groups, and decision-making processes, equipping them to lead cross-functional initiatives later in their careers.

The impact compounds in remote settings, where visibility and cross-departmental contact are harder to achieve.

For managers navigating distributed environments, middle managers play a critical role in identifying and enabling these opportunities. Explore our insights on managing middle managers.

Red Flags: When a Lateral Move May Fail

Not every lateral move is a win. Warning signs include:

1. Misaligned Goals

If the new role doesn’t support the employee’s long-term career aspirations, it can feel like a detour rather than a development step. In remote setups, where career path clarity is already a challenge, this mismatch can make an employee feel adrift.

2. Poor Onboarding

Simply shifting someone into a new role and letting them “figure it out” is a recipe for frustration. In distributed teams, the lack of in-person coaching makes structured onboarding and clear success metrics even more critical. Without them, productivity and confidence can drop quickly.

3. No Visible Progression

Lateral moves should be part of a bigger picture, not a dead end. If employees don’t see how the move leads to broader responsibilities, skill growth, or eventual promotion, it risks being perceived as a holding pattern. That perception can be even stronger in remote teams, where achievements are less visible to leadership.

4. Stall Tactics

Some organizations use lateral moves to delay addressing pay, performance, or engagement issues. Employees can spot this immediately, and in remote environments, where communication gaps already exist, this can erode trust faster than in-office settings.

A poor-fit move can harm both morale and productivity, especially in remote teams where re-engaging a disengaged employee is harder.

Best Practices for Making Lateral Moves Work in Remote Teams

To maximize success, leaders should:

1. Map Internal Career Lattices

Think “lattice,” not “ladder.” Employees should see multiple possible moves, sideways, diagonally, and upward, based on their skills and interests. Create and share visual maps of potential pathways, including the competencies and experiences required for each. This transparency helps remote workers see growth opportunities without assuming they must leave to advance.

2. Offer Structured Onboarding and Mentorship

Shifting roles means shifting contexts. Assign a peer mentor in the new department to guide the transition and answer day-to-day questions. Pair this with remote-friendly onboarding resources such as recorded walkthroughs, documented workflows, and a 30-60-90 day success plan to give the employee clarity from day one.

3. Announce Moves Transparently

Celebrate internal mobility in company updates, Slack channels, or all-hands meetings. This not only recognizes the individual but signals to the entire organization that you value developing talent from within, a critical cultural message for distributed teams where opportunities can feel less visible.

4. Start with Short-Term Projects

Pilot cross-functional assignments before committing to a permanent move. This trial period lets both the employee and the receiving team gauge fit, while reducing the risk of disruption if the role isn’t a match. In remote settings, these “test runs” also build rapport between teams in different locations.

5. Prioritize Internal Candidates

Before posting a role externally, give current employees first right of application. Even if they aren’t selected, the gesture signals trust and investment. It also shortens the learning curve, since internal hires already understand your systems, culture, and expectations.

For a deeper dive on talent pathways, see our guide to talent acquisition specialists.

Final Take: Lateral Moves as a Retention Strategy

In remote-first organizations, lateral moves are not a consolation prize, they’re a strategic tool to retain talent, build skills, and prepare leaders.

Companies that proactively design internal mobility programs will outpace those relying solely on promotions to keep people engaged.

If you want to structure internal mobility programs that work for your distributed team without losing momentum or data security, see how Penbrothers approaches remote team management.