When employees think about their future with an organization, compensation, leadership, culture, and flexibility all influence the decision to stay. So does a more basic question. Can I build the career I want here?
For many employees, the answer isn’t clear. Gallup found that one in four U.S. employees say they don’t have opportunities for career advancement at their organization. Only 63% say those opportunities are available.
That creates a challenge for employers trying to retain strong talent and build leadership pipelines at the same time. Creating opportunities for advancement is part of the equation, but organizations also need a reliable way to determine who is prepared to take on greater responsibility and where development is needed before someone advances.
Promotability gives talent leaders another way to approach that decision. By evaluating readiness for the next level, organizations can make more informed promotion and development decisions while giving employees greater visibility into what preparing for future leadership could require.
Career Growth Continues to Influence Employee Retention
Career opportunity has remained a consistent part of the retention conversation. Work Institute’s 2026 Retention Report found that career-related reasons remained the number one reason employees left organizations in 2025, continuing a trend the organization has tracked since 2011. Career issues accounted for 19.2% of reasons for leaving that year.
Earlier research from Pew Research Center found a similar connection. Among workers who voluntarily left a job in 2021, 63% cited a lack of advancement opportunities as a reason for leaving. The finding comes from a distinct period in the labor market and shouldn’t be treated as a current turnover rate, but it shows how significantly advancement factored into employees’ decisions to leave.
Pew also found that among those who quit in 2021 and were employed elsewhere, 53% said their new job offered more opportunities for advancement than their previous one.
Employees don’t need a promotion every year to see a future with an organization. But when career growth is part of the talent strategy, employers face another important question: Who is actually prepared for the next level?
Strong Performance Doesn’t Always Signal Next-Level Readiness
Most organizations have plenty of information about how employees are performing today. They have performance reviews, KPIs, manager feedback, project results, and years of experience to consider.
Those inputs can be valuable, but the requirements of a larger role may look very different. An employee who excels within a defined area of responsibility may eventually need to make decisions with less information, work through greater ambiguity, influence a broader group of stakeholders, or assume accountability for outcomes beyond their own work.
Motivation can change as well. A strong performer may be interested in continued growth without wanting the visibility, influence, ambiguity, and accountability associated with the next leadership level.
XBInsight’s Leadership Readiness & Promotability framework examines next-level readiness through three dimensions.
- Ability considers whether someone has the cognitive capacity to manage greater complexity and strategic demands.
- Skill looks at the learned, observable leadership competencies required at the next level.
- Will considers the individual’s motivation for what greater leadership responsibility involves.
The model also incorporates fit with the next role and potential derailers that could interfere with successful advancement.
Together, those factors provide a more complete view than current performance alone. Leaders can look beyond what an employee has accomplished in their current role and consider how well that individual is positioned to meet the demands of future roles—including the next level and the levels beyond it.
Further reading: The Hidden Cost of Promoting the Wrong People in 2027
Better Promotability Data Can Make Development More Specific
Knowing an employee isn’t ready for advancement today doesn’t end the career conversation. It can give leaders more information about what needs to happen next.
Broad labels such as “high potential” can identify employees the organization wants to invest in, but they don’t necessarily tell leaders what someone needs to work on. When readiness is evaluated against the demands of the next role and the leadership levels that follow, development can become more targeted and intentional.
An employee may demonstrate the cognitive capacity required for greater complexity but still need to strengthen specific leadership competencies. Another may have developed many of the necessary skills but show less motivation for the realities of the next role. Someone else may be strong across several areas but have a potential derailer that deserves attention before additional responsibility is added.
Those distinctions give HR and business leaders better information for individual development planning. They can focus coaching, stretch assignments, learning opportunities, and leadership development on areas connected to future responsibilities instead of offering the same development path to every high performer.
Employees gain something useful from that clarity as well. “You’re not ready yet” doesn’t offer much direction. Understanding where readiness gaps exist gives an employee something concrete to develop and creates a more informed conversation about what advancement could require.
Make Promotion Decisions About the Role Ahead
Promotion decisions affect more than the individual being considered. They affect the team that person may lead, the role being vacated, and the organization’s broader succession plans.
That makes next-level readiness an important consideration alongside an employee’s record of performance and contribution. It also makes Will especially relevant. Organizations can spend considerable time preparing someone for leadership without fully understanding whether that employee wants the responsibilities associated with the next level.
XBInsight grounds its Promotability analysis in the requirements of future leadership roles. An individual’s Promotability Score is anchored to their Fit Score for the applicable role profile, keeping the assessment connected to the specific requirements of the role they are being considered for.
For HR and business leaders, that creates a more informed way to evaluate advancement. Past performance remains valuable information, but promotion decisions can also account for the capabilities, competencies, motivation, fit, and potential derailers associated with what comes next.
Build the Leadership Pipeline Before a Role Opens
Ability, Skill, and Will still don’t exist in a vacuum. Readiness has to connect to the role.
The same information can strengthen succession planning. Organizations don’t have to wait until a critical position opens to start evaluating the people who could eventually fill it.
Promotability data can help leaders identify employees who appear ready for greater responsibility and recognize where additional development may be needed before others advance. That gives organizations more information to use as they develop internal talent against the requirements of future roles.
It also connects individual development with a broader business need. Employees can have more informed conversations about their potential path forward, while leaders gain greater visibility into the talent being prepared for future leadership responsibilities.
Connect Retention, Development, and Succession With Better Talent Intelligence
The XBInsight Leadership Readiness & Promotability Report provides an innovative approach to measuring promotability by evaluating an individual’s readiness to succeed in future leadership roles, based on the specific demands and requirements of the role being considered.
Rather than relying primarily on current performance, tenure, manager opinion, or a broad assessment of potential, the report brings together Ability, Skill, and Will with next-level fit and potential derailers. Together, these insights give organizations a science-based view of next-level readiness they can use to inform promotion, succession, and development decisions.
That intelligence helps leaders distinguish between current performance and readiness for greater responsibility while identifying development needs that may prepare employees for future advancement.
For organizations working to retain and develop talented employees, promotability adds another layer of talent intelligence to career development and succession decisions. Employees gain greater clarity around what future leadership may require, while the organization gains a more structured view of who may be ready for what’s next.
See how XBInsight’s Leadership Readiness & Promotability Report brings science-backed insight to promotion, succession, and development decisions. Request your demo.