How to Retain Your Top Employees When You Can’t Promote Them

Promotion rates in the United States have entered a decisive slowdown, but the expectations of ambitious professionals have not. After peaking at 14.6% in May 2022, the promotion rate fell to 10.3% in May 2025, according to Gusto. For many high-performing employees who joined a company expecting rapid advancement, the reality is very different today.

Inside organizations, this shift isn’t just a numbers story. It’s a psychological one. When promotion timelines stretch and compensation gains stall, even your strongest talent starts questioning whether the expectations set early on still hold true or if the rules of the game have changed and the end of their career at the company is near.

For leaders, this is the moment that matters. When the original deal changes, you can’t afford to let disappointment harden into disengagement. You have to re-recruit your people quickly by reshaping the value you offer — not around pay or title, but around mission, autonomy and long-term stability. Here’s how:

Related: I Discovered the Power of Employee Engagement — and Never Looked Back. Here’s Why It Should Be a Top Priority for Every Leader.

1. Schedule the mission-critical re-recruitment conversation

The worst mistake is letting disappointment fester. Avoiding the conversation doesn’t protect morale; it actually accelerates disengagement. Address the gap directly and immediately, with relevant context around the economy, industry, company and/or resources, to help restore clarity and employee commitment.

Marti Willett, president of Digital Marketing Recruiters, a digital staffing agency with 25 years of experience in the space, captures this well: “Own the narrative early and honestly. Employees don’t disengage because growth slows. They disengage because the leaders don’t explain the ‘why’ and the actions they are going to take to get back on track. Reestablish a purpose by helping employees understand your company’s mission and long-term value, how the updated strategy still matters to the market and how their work continues to have an impact.”

One founder I worked with learned this the hard way. After delaying annual promotions, she tried to “ride out the mood” instead of naming the issue. By the time she sat down with her engineering leads, the team had developed its own story, one far more pessimistic than the truth. Once she finally reset expectations and walked them through the revised strategy, the tension began to ease. But she lost two key team members, and the repair work took months longer than the conversation she avoided.

When the deal changes, schedule the meeting within days. Explain the market reality. Describe the updated strategy. Acknowledge the disappointment without sugarcoating it. Then, shift to the core of the re-recruitment: Remind them why the mission still matters, why their role remains vital to the company’s long-term value and how you, the leader, are committed to their success along the way. Purpose, not platitudes, is what re-anchors belief.

2. Trade title growth for autonomy and stability

When promotions stall, leaders often reach for the only lever they think still carries weight: promises of future advancement. But high performers don’t want delayed dreams. They want meaningful ownership today.

The smarter move is to give them autonomy, not adjectives on a business card. Assign an initiative that reshapes part of the business, accelerates a customer outcome or reduces a critical bottleneck. Elevate their impact even when you can’t elevate their title.

This aligns with the real shift happening in employee priorities. According to McKinsey’s HR Monitor 2025, 39% of employees stay in their roles primarily for job security, making stability the top retention factor. Compensation and benefits — the previous top driver — now rank highest for only 28% of workers. When leaders can’t offer bigger paychecks, they can still offer the very thing people value most: professional stability, purpose-grounded responsibilities and continuous learning and development.

Assigning a mission-critical project communicates something essential: You are still a cornerstone of our future, even if the ladder temporarily stops moving. And for many employees, that affirmation is worth more than the missing title bump.

Related: The Power of Autonomy: Fostering a Thriving Workplace

3. Don’t compete on salary — mission is the new compensation

When leaders feel pressured to “match the market,” they often forget a powerful truth: Most employees don’t leave because of pay alone. They leave because the total value proposition stopped feeling compelling.

To reset that value, leaders can use a simple visual tool that I call the value pie. Put compensation in one slice. Then add the elements that represent the remaining 80% of someone’s total value. That might include learning velocity, cultural stability, the relationship with their manager, equity, autonomy, benefits and the ability to influence decisions. When employees see the pie drawn out, compensation becomes exactly what it is — important, but far from the whole deal. Much of what matters most is already in their hands.

Take Chipotle, for example. In the face of high turnover, the company expanded its education benefits to reinforce a broader mission of helping employees grow, not just earn. Workers who participated in the program were 2.1 times more likely to stay and 6 times more likely to become managers, according to Guild. That shift didn’t require higher wages. It required a more compelling story about growth, purpose and long-term opportunity.

Re-recruitment isn’t about convincing someone to settle. It’s about reframing value accurately, sometimes for the first time.

Related: Want to Maximize Employee Retention? Here Are 20 KPIs You Need to Track.

The real deal leaders must keep

When the compensation narrative breaks, leaders often fear losing their best people. But the truth is simpler and far more strategic: Talent doesn’t stay because the paycheck climbs. They stay because of the mission and how leadership treats them.

Re-recruiting your team requires clarity, candor and the courage to shift the deal from (only) money and title to meaning and belonging. If you can do that consistently and early, you won’t just retain your high performers. You’ll deepen their commitment to the work that matters most, even in the moments when the numbers can’t.

Promotion rates in the United States have entered a decisive slowdown, but the expectations of ambitious professionals have not. After peaking at 14.6% in May 2022, the promotion rate fell to 10.3% in May 2025, according to Gusto. For many high-performing employees who joined a company expecting rapid advancement, the reality is very different today.

Inside organizations, this shift isn’t just a numbers story. It’s a psychological one. When promotion timelines stretch and compensation gains stall, even your strongest talent starts questioning whether the expectations set early on still hold true or if the rules of the game have changed and the end of their career at the company is near.