Promotion Rate
2022 National Average Value
13
%
What is the Promotion Rate?
The Promotion Rate reports the percentage of employees that are promoted each year.
What is the average value of Promotion Rate?
According to the Saratoga Workforce Index, the national average Promotion Rate in 2022 was 13%.
What is Promotion Rate by industry?
The Promotion Rate has a high variance across industries. If you need benchmarks for your specific industry, please contact the Saratoga team.
Where can I get Promotion Rate benchmarks?
The annual Saratoga HR and Workforce Benchmarking Study releases the Promotion Rate benchmark for over 20 different industries each year. The national average is released as part of the annual Saratoga Workforce Index.
How is the Promotion Rate calculated?
The Promotion Rate is calculated by dividing the number of employees promoted by the total number in the organization and then multiplying by 100 to get the percentage.
What does a low Promotion Rate mean?
A low Promotion Rate might indicate a flat organizational model, high turnover rates, or low employee engagement. It could also be a sign of limited roles in your organization that offer promotion opportunities. A low promotion rate has the potential to increase turnover as employees do not feel the opportunity to move up.
What does a high Promotion Rate mean?
A high Promotion Rate might indicate a fast-paced change or company growth. It could also be a sign of upward mobility that your workforce has experienced. It could also indicate that managers are leaving the organization quickly and are being replaced from within instead of finding external hires.
What other benchmarks are relevant to Promotion Rate?
Racial/Ethnic Minority Promotion Rate
Women Executive Headcount Percent
About the Saratoga Workforce Index
The Saratoga Workforce Index is an indispensable reference of national averages of 30 commonly requested HR metrics. Based on PwC Saratoga’s annual workforce benchmarking study of over 1000 metrics spanning hundreds of companies and over 20 industries, the Saratoga Workforce Index is your “quick start” guide to workforce benchmarks.
Download the guide to see the national averages for all of these:
- 90 Day Total Turnover Rate
- Average Number of Direct Reports
- Cost per Hire
- Director Headcount Ratio
- Executive Headcount Ratio
- Finance FTE Ratio
- First Year of Service Turnover Rate
- General & Administrative Function Voluntary Separation Rate
- Hire Rate
- HR FTE Ratio
- Information Technology FTE Ratio
- Labor Cost Revenue Percent
- Layers
- Learning & Development Investment per Employee
- Legal FTE Ratio
- Management Headcount Ratio
- Manager Headcount Ratio
- Offer Acceptance Rate
- One to Three Years of Service Voluntary Separation Rate
- Promotion Rate
- Racial/Ethnic Minority Headcount Percent
- Racial/Ethnic Minority Promotion Rate
- Racial/Ethnic Minority Voluntary Separation Rate
- Revenue per FTE
- Time to Accept
- Time to Start
- Turnover Rate
- Vacancy Rate
- Voluntary Separation Rate
- Women Executive Headcount Percent
- Women Headcount Percent
- Women Promotion Rate
- Women Voluntary Separation Rate
Need industry-specific benchmarks?
We provide these values as a reference point for discussions. However, given the high variance across industries, sizes and revenue, these national averages should NOT be used to make important business decisions or used in any formal reporting.
If you intend to use benchmarks for business decisions, please join Saratoga as a full member so you can have access to more specific comparison groups for each industry, revenue, size, profit/non-profit status and more. With a full membership, you’ll have access to over 1,000 metrics that are much more accurate and specific than a national average. The membership process is relatively simple, mostly automated and reasonably priced with a clear ROI.
Referencing Saratoga Workforce Index Data
If you choose to refer to these metrics in any of your materials, whether internally or externally, we ask that you include the following statement:
Excerpted from the Saratoga Workforce Index. © 2023 PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, all rights reserved. Data is for discussion purposes only and cannot be used for investment decisions or financial evaluations.
You may include up to five metrics in any internal or external publication without any additional permissions. Contact us at saratoga@pwc.com if you want to use more than five or would like to reproduce the Saratoga Workforce Index in its entirety.
About Saratoga
Saratoga workforce and HR benchmarks provide reference points for executive-level discussions, context for people dashboards, and data to inform workforce and HR decisions. Hundreds of companies across over 20 industries trust Saratoga each year to supply over 1,000 validated workforce benchmarks around turnover, diversity, staffing, productivity, efficiency, fairness, and more.
Request a demo of Saratoga to get access to industry-specific benchmarks for up to 1000 benchmarks.