The Development Quotient (DQ)

Being a developer of people is a huge advantage for both organisations and leaders. Strong talent development drives business continuity, brand perception, and engagement. On the flip side, organisations that neglect people development—or worse, burn through talent—risk employee disengagement and stagnation.

But how do you measure an organisation’s or leader’s true impact on people development?

Introducing the Development Quotient (DQ)

The Development Quotient (DQ) quantifies how well organisations, business units, and managers translate talent development efforts into outcomes. It factors in four key variables:

✅ Planned Promotions (P) – Internal talent moving up

✅ Sponsored Development Moves (S) – Growth-focused stretch opportunities

✅ Referrals (R) – Employees bringing in great talent

❌ Departures (D) – Talent lost due to resignation, restructuring, or performance

The equation?

A high DQ reflects a strong development culture, while a low DQ signals gaps in leadership, succession planning, and retention strategies.

Breaking Down the DQ

Planned Promotions (P)

This counts the number of people promoted directly through succession planning or talent discussions. These promotions demonstrate a structured investment in internal growth and show a leader’s ability to prepare people for more senior roles.

❓ What about employees who apply and win a promotion?

The DQ focuses on the organisation’s development efforts, not individual initiative, so self-driven promotions aren’t included.

Referrals (R)

This tracks employees bringing in new talent from their networks. High referral numbers indicate a strong workplace culture, where employees actively recommend the organisation to people they trust.

❓ What about hiring through job boards, recruiters, or headhunters?

Those hires still matter but indicate a lack of ready internal talent—either for promotions or development moves.

Departures (D)

This measures talent lost due to resignations, restructuring, or terminations. High turnover hinders progress, disrupts engagement, and signals potential leadership, culture, or career progression issues.

❓ What if someone leaves for a valid reason?

Regardless of the reason, a departure represents lost development potential. Even if it’s due to restructuring or poor performance, it reflects missed opportunities to engage or improve the workforce.

Why It Matters

The beauty of the Development Quotient is its flexibility—it can be applied:

✅ At an organisational level

✅ Across business units or functions

✅ To individual managers

It can even highlight gender disparities—is the DQ higher or lower for women vs. men?

What’s a Good Score?

It depends. The first step is to establish a baseline using the last 12 months of data. This baseline will spark critical discussions:

Is our succession planning working?
Are our managers truly developing talent?
Are we investing in external hires instead of internal growth?
Why are people leaving?

Your first DQ score isn’t the endpoint—it’s the starting point for action. Identify gaps, make strategic changes, and track improvements over time.

You’ve got your DQ score…now what? get in touch.

Justin Miles

Manager Partner, Melbourne at Generator Talent

Justin is the Managing Partner of our Melbourne office, an outcome focused leader with a track record of driving business performance through proven talent and organisation development practices. Justin’s methods and skills have been shaped by working with performance oriented leaders in great companies including PepsiCo, The Campbell Soup Company, Diageo, Rip Curl, Fonterra and Wesfarmers, in Australia, the USA and Latin America.