The 9-box talent review: a complete HR guide

The hardest talent management decisions rarely involve poor performers. They’re usually about employees who are doing good work but show different levels of potential and readiness for future roles. A 9-box talent review helps teams compare those situations with more consistency.

In this article, you’ll learn how to use the framework, what each box represents, and how to avoid reducing employees to permanent labels.

Key Takeaways

A 9-box talent review maps employee performance against future potential to guide development, succession, and training decisions. This article explains how to run fair, evidence-based reviews, reduce bias, interpret each box, build action plans, recognize limitations, choose alternatives, and keep decisions current through regular reassessment.

What is the 9-Box Talent Review?

The 9-Box Talent Review, or the 9-Box Talent Matrix, was created in 1970 by the global management consulting firm McKinsey for General Electric to help prioritize investments across its business units. Today, the 9-box grid is a framework that employers and HR professionals use to evaluate and map an organization’s talent pool along two axes: current performance and future potential.

Visually, it looks like a 3×3 matrix, where “x,” the horizontal axis, represents an employee’s current performance — whether they are below, meeting, or exceeding performance expectations, and “y,” the vertical axis, indicates their potential to grow into leadership roles.

What is the purpose of a 9-box talent review?

A talent review extends beyond the next performance cycle. It influences who joins leadership programs, who takes on larger projects, and who may be ready when an unexpected vacancy appears. A 9-box talent review helps connect those decisions instead of making them one at a time.

The same process can inform succession planning, workforce planning, retention, and training investments.

How the 9-box grid works: performance vs. potential

If employee performance told the whole story, the grid would only need one axis. The second exists because organizations aren’t only filling today’s roles. They’re also preparing for the ones that don’t exist yet or will soon become vacant.

Performance

Current performance looks at the work an employee is already responsible for. Are they meeting deadlines? Can people count on them? Is the quality consistent? Do they work well with the rest of the team? Those are the kinds of questions managers are usually answering here.

Potential

Potential is harder because there isn’t a report that gives you the answer. Managers look for patterns instead. Does the person pick up unfamiliar work quickly? Do they remain calm when things change? Are colleagues already turning to them for advice, even if leadership isn’t part of their job yet?

Benefits and limitations of the 9-box grid

By the end of a talent review, the boxes are usually the easy part. Deciding whether someone is ready for a larger role takes much longer. Managers weigh current performance, context, recent growth, team needs, and sometimes information that never appears in a spreadsheet. This is why the Grid isn’t perfect, although it offers many advantages.

It keeps talent management simple

Talent reviews can quickly become overwhelming when everyone brings different notes and different opinions. The grid creates a shared reference point without adding much complexity to the process.

That simplicity has limits. An employee who’s struggling today may have taken on an entirely different role six months ago. Someone who seems average in one team may thrive after changing managers. A single box rarely tells the whole story.

It encourages managers to think beyond today’s performance management

A talent review asks what should happen next. That shift influences promotion discussions, succession planning, development priorities, and decisions about where training will have the greatest value.

Potential is also the hardest part of the conversation. Managers often need to compare observations, challenge assumptions, and revisit earlier assessments as employees continue to grow.

It works in different organizations

A startup planning its first leadership team doesn’t have the same priorities as a company with thousands of employees. The grid stays useful because each organization can decide what strong performance and future potential look like in its own environment.

The model leaves plenty of room for interpretation, and that’s where things can become inconsistent. Without shared definitions, managers might judge similar high-potential employees in very different ways.

“Every role and every employee’s productivity are contextual. The 9-box grid doesn’t take into account the many circumstances that affect an employee’s performance.

You can’t abstract that away and rely solely on your feelings about a person’s performance and potential. That’s why it’s better to use the 9-box grid in conjunction with other, more precise and comprehensive methods.”

Natalie Taylor, Senior eLearning Consultant at iSpring

How to use the 9-box grid in the performance management process

To create the 9-box grid, you need to have the results of two assessments: employee performance and potential. Then merge them, analyze the results, and take action.

Let’s break this process down into steps.

Step 1. Define performance and potential criteria

Everyone has their own idea of what makes a future leader. Some value technical expertise, while others pay closer attention to curiosity, influence, or sound judgment. That’s why defining the criteria comes first.

Employee performance and potential should both have clear, observable indicators before anyone starts placing employees on the grid. Otherwise, the discussion quickly becomes more about opinions than the people being assessed.

Step 2. Gather objective evidence

Every employee has a story that’s easy to tell and another that’s easy to miss. One is the presentation everyone remembers. The other is months of steady work that quietly kept the team moving.

Bring together evidence from different sources before placing employees on the grid. Performance data, project outcomes, feedback, and business results all add other pieces to the puzzle.

Step 3. Assess employee performance

For the 9-box grid, you need to sort performance scores into three groups: low, moderate, and high. You can interpret these categories in different ways, depending on your position or the specifics of your organization. Here is a general interpretation to get you started:

Step 4. Assess employee potential

We suggest that you answer these questions to better understand if an employee has the potential for strong growth:

• How well does the employee adapt to changes in their role or the organization? Can they easily adopt new technologies, methods, or work processes?
• Does the employee seek out professional development opportunities?
• Are they open to taking on leadership or mentoring roles?
• Does the employee show initiative in taking on new projects or responsibilities without explicit direction?
• How well do they handle setbacks or challenges in the workplace?

Just like performance, employee potential also needs to be divided into three groups: low, moderate, and high potential.

Step 5. Calibrate ratings with managers and HR

The first rating doesn’t have to be the final one. That’s why calibration meetings exist. Managers compare examples, explain why they reached a particular conclusion, and listen to colleagues who have worked with the same employee in different situations. HR helps keep those discussions consistent across teams and departments.

Step 6. Place employees on the grid

Once you score all employees’ performance and potential, design a 3×3 grid and place them in the appropriate boxes:

In the top row are employees with the highest potential, and in the bottom row are those with low potential. In the middle is a wide range of potential levels between these extremes.

Step 7. Turn placements into development actions

If you thought that was it, the most important part and the purpose of creating the 9-box grid are just beginning! Now you need to analyze the results and determine the performance improvement plan for each group of employees. But first, you need to clearly understand what each box represents and how to work with it. Let’s take a closer look.

Jitasa shows what effective follow-through can look like. This accounting services company uses iSpring LMS to run 360-degree performance reviews, identify knowledge gaps, and assign targeted training based on the results. Managers can also assess practical skills through on-the-job checklists. Today, 96% of the company’s employees engage with online learning regularly—turning assessment data into ongoing employee development rather than leaving it in a review document.

The 9-box grid template: how to download and use it

The discussion doesn’t end when employees are placed on the grid. Managers still need to document decisions and follow through on them.

The grid itself only shows where employees are today. A good template also captures what happens next. To make your job easier, we’ve prepared a ready-made template. In addition to the matrix, you’ll find fields for employee names and roles, performance and potential scores, box placement, evidence supporting each decision, agreed development plans, owners, and talent review dates.

Download the free 9-box grid template

9-box grid categories and action plans

All categories at a glance:

Underperformers

In the bottom left corner of the 9-box grid are the employees with low performance and potential.

Being in the Underperformers cell doesn’t necessarily mean the employee is lazy or lacks ambition. It’s more likely that they could have excelled in a different position or at a different company.

What can you do?

1. Conduct a 1:1 meeting to identify barriers that are causing poor results.
2. If there are objective factors, endeavor to address them.
3. If you have open positions, offer the employee a transition to another role where they can utilize their abilities.
4. When nothing works, consider terminating the employee, as they can threaten the success of your organization and undermine the morale of other team members.
5. Review the hiring process to reduce the likelihood of such employees in the future.

You can avoid “Underperformers” with a well-oiled pre-boarding process organized with iSpring LMS. Just upload and assign all the information, courses, psychological quizzes, and test tasks that candidates need to complete. When candidates complete the program, iSpring LMS will generate a detailed report with progress results for each candidate, so you can easily understand who is a good fit for the position, who you should say goodbye to, and who can be considered for a position that is more relevant to their skills and experience.

Up or out

These are employees with low potential and moderate performance. They can easily be seen as a challenging group because these employees are doing enough to keep them from getting fired, but still aren’t providing their best and have unclear prospects.

What can you do?

1. Discuss the reasons that prevent an employee from getting better results.
2. Reveal employee skill gaps and provide development opportunities through personalized training programs, peer learning, or mentorship programs.
3. If the reason for their underperformance is a poor onboarding experience, give the employee additional training to help them understand their role in the company.
4. Observe their development, as these types of employees tend to transition to higher or lower performance or potential over time.

When it comes to induction training, it’s much more efficient to deliver it online with specialized training software. For example, with iSpring LMS, you can create and deliver comprehensive onboarding programs in just a few days, helping new team members reach their full potential and achieve peak productivity faster.

Onboarding programs are conveniently organized by day or topic, making them readily digestible and easy to follow. New hires can access courses directly from their mobile phones, so they can be better prepared to succeed.

Workhorses

Workhorses have high employee performance and low potential. They do their best at their jobs but are unlikely to aspire to a promotion or leadership role, either because of some personal trait or because they’re content with their current position and don’t want to change.

What can you do?

1. Treat them like good employees: make sure their working conditions remain comfortable, reward them for success, and index their salaries regularly to keep these people compensated fairly.
2. It’s best not to promote them, but it’s alright to include them in mentoring programs, invite them to share their expertise at some workshops, and help newcomers.

Rough diamonds

Rough diamonds, or untapped talents, are at the other end of the spectrum. They’re enthusiastic but lack experience, like fresh university graduates who jumped right into a new job in the industry.

What can you do?

1. Explain assigned tasks to employees clearly, monitor progress, and reward good results.
2. Discuss the criteria and KPIs that are used to measure work so employees understand what is expected of them.
3. Give them opportunities to develop their skills through training programs and working with a mentor.

Employee training programs are easy to implement with iSpring LMS. Moreover, the process doesn’t even require your manual intervention. Just set the rules once, and the platform will automatically assign courses to the appropriate group of learners, notify them of new courses, remind them of deadlines, and provide you with detailed reports on how your teams are progressing.

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Core players and high potentials

This is the most stable group of employees who are really “in place”: they like their jobs and are therefore quite productive and satisfied. “High Potentials” are future leaders and are like rising stars, but they lack the experience or expertise to do so.

What can you do?

We’ve combined these two quadrants because the strategy is much the same for both:

1. Have regular 1:1s to ensure that tasks are clear and motivation is high. Discuss prospects, ask what they want in the future, give feedback on their work, and celebrate successes.
2. For those who want to do more, offer online training to fill knowledge and skill gaps, or assign a mentor to help them perform better.
3. Focus on improving employee performance and monitor their progress.

High performers

These are high-potential employees who move out of the “core players” box when L&D teams or employers have a great employee training plan. They’re strong contributors who perform super well and have moderate potential to perform even better in the future.

What can you do?

1. Discuss desired career paths. If an employee is happy with their job and isn’t looking for a promotion, just keep them engaged and happy in their position.
2. If they want to do more, gradually expand their responsibilities and give them more challenging assignments.
3. Offer them a promotion in the future if there are openings in the company.

Stars

Stars are the undisputed leaders in the organization. They are often those who have been with the company for 3-5 years or more, are performing their jobs perfectly, and still have potential for further success. Stars are always first in line for promotions, greater responsibilities, and high-profile projects.

What can you do?

1. Do your best to keep them engaged. Check in on their enthusiasm 2-3 times a year and make sure they don’t get bored with their daily tasks.
2. These employees can’t do routine work for long. Assign them challenging tasks to allow them to express their potential.
3. If they’re bored and there are no leadership positions available, offer them a horizontal promotion — a role with a slightly different skill set to help them grow in a different direction and stay excited about their jobs.
4. Increase their public profile. Involve them in mentoring programs as mentors, and invite them to speak at meetups.

How to use the 9-box grid for succession planning

Most succession plans fail because nobody has discussed who could step into a critical role until the role suddenly becomes vacant. A retirement, resignation, promotion, or business expansion can turn succession planning from a long-term initiative into an immediate priority. The 9-box grid helps organizations prepare for those moments by looking beyond today’s performance.

Step 1. Identify leadership readiness

Succession planning becomes much easier when managers stop thinking in terms of a single future leader and start thinking in terms of readiness.

Very few employees stay in the same place for long. Some grow into larger responsibilities faster than expected, while others find their strengths in a different direction. The grid should change as those careers evolve.

Step 2. Match people to critical roles

Employees often described as Stars or Future Stars are natural places to begin, but they shouldn’t automatically be assigned to leadership positions. Technical specialists, experienced individual contributors, and emerging leaders can all play different roles in a succession plan depending on the needs of the organization.

Step 3. Turn talent gaps into development plans

Some employees need broader business exposure. Others need more experience leading projects or influencing people outside their own team. Rather than searching for a perfect candidate, identify what future leaders still need to learn. 

How to reduce bias in 9-box reviews

The goal here isn’t to remove judgment from a 9-box review, but to ensure that every employee is assessed using the same evidence and the same expectations.

Agree on the criteria before a talent review

Many disagreements begin with definitions. If one manager sees “high potential” as leadership ability and another thinks it means technical expertise, they’re likely to place the same employee in different parts of the grid. Agreeing on what strong performance and future potential look like before the talent review makes later conversations much more consistent.

Bring more than one perspective

Every manager sees only part of someone’s work. Looking at several sources creates a more balanced picture than relying on one person’s experience. Consider the following:

• Employee performance reviews
• Project outcomes
• Peer input
• Manager observations
• Customer feedback
• 360-degree feedback where appropriate 

Challenge ratings before they become final

Ask managers to explain why they placed someone in a particular box. Sometimes the discussion confirms the original assessment. Sometimes another manager adds context that changes it.

Record the reasoning behind important decisions

Six months from now, most people will remember where an employee was placed on the grid. Fewer will remember why. A few notes explaining the evidence behind a rating make future discussions much easier. 

Revisit the grid as people grow

People gain confidence, change teams, take on stretch assignments, and sometimes surprise everyone. Revisiting the grid regularly helps those changes show up before an important leadership role becomes available. It also gives managers a chance to replace old assumptions with new evidence instead of letting past ratings define future decisions.

Common 9-box grid mistakes to avoid

The talent review process rarely goes wrong all at once. The conversation usually drifts a little at a time. Here are common mistakes that can potentially cause failure:

1. Don’t let strong performance answer every question. The employee who delivers the strongest results isn’t always the one who is most prepared for a larger role. A good talent review leaves room for all instead of treating leadership as the only measure of success.
2. Don’t let one memorable moment outweigh everything else. Every employee has a few stories people remember (either good or bad). Good talent reviews make sure those stories don’t become the entire assessment.
3. Don’t rely on one person’s perspective. A direct manager watches the day-to-day work. Project leads see how someone performs under pressure. Putting those perspectives together usually leads to a much fairer discussion than relying on a single person’s opinion.
4. Don’t forget to ask employees where they want to go. Before deciding who should be developed for a future role, ask employees where they see themselves going. Their answer may confirm your assumptions—or change them entirely.
5. Don’t leave the meeting without a plan. Give employees opportunities to build the experience they’re missing instead of waiting for another talent review process to have the same conversation again.

When not to use a 9-box grid

The 9-box grid works best when it helps managers answer difficult questions. It is much less effective when the answers have already been decided or there’s too little information to have an honest discussion. In those situations, the framework often creates the appearance of objectivity without adding much value.

Alternative ways to evaluate employee performance

In addition to the 9-box talent review process, there are numerous methods and frameworks for assessing performance. We’ll mention a few here to broaden your perspective and help you choose the one that best fits your needs.

4-box grid

The 4-box grid is a simplified version of the 9-box talent review. Instead of evaluating employees across nine categories, it divides them into four groups based on performance and potential.

This model is often used by smaller organizations or teams that want a straightforward way to identify top talent and development priorities without debating subtle differences between multiple boxes.

Skills matrix

A skills matrix focuses on what employees can do rather than where they fit on a talent grid. Managers list the skills required for a role and assess each employee against those requirements, making it easier to identify strengths, knowledge gaps, and training priorities across a team.

Skill-will matrix

The Skill-Will Matrix looks at two simple questions: Does the employee have the skills to perform the job, and do they have the motivation to do it? By combining capability with willingness, managers can tailor coaching, delegation, and development to each employee’s situation.

This framework is especially useful for day-to-day people management because it helps explain why two employees with similar skills may need very different kinds of support.

Competency model

A competency model evaluates employees against a defined set of behaviors, knowledge, and skills required for success in a particular role. Organizations often use competency models to create consistent expectations for hiring, performance reviews, leadership development, and promotions.

Talent profile

A talent profile brings together information about an employee in one place, including their experience, strengths, career aspirations, development needs, performance history, and future potential. Instead of assigning someone to a single box, it creates a broader picture that managers can use during talent reviews and succession planning.

360-degree assessment

A 360-degree review is a comprehensive approach that allows you to gather feedback on an employee’s performance from all angles: superiors, peers, subordinates, and even customers, providing a multidimensional view of an employee’s skills, productivity, and behavior in the workplace. It also includes a self-assessment, so you can check whether the employee’s vision is in line with how their work is perceived by the team.

Such a performance evaluation can be easily implemented online, directly in iSpring LMS, so there’s no need to collect feedback manually and then spend days analyzing the results. You just need to define the competencies for a particular role, set a rating scale of 1 to 5 or 10 points for each of them, and select the respondents. iSpring LMS will notify those who need to complete a questionnaire, collect their anonymous input, and generate detailed reports with extensive analytics.

Final tips for using the 9-box grid effectively

The most successful 9-box talent reviews don’t result in a completed matrix. That happens when organizations combine fair assessments with practical development plans, consistent feedback, learning opportunities, and regular reviews that reflect how people and the business continue to change.

Here are the key takeaways from the 9-box grid:

• The 9-box grid can be effective for talent management. It really helps to segment employees and make informed decisions in succession planning or implementing future training activities.
• Think outside the box. The “value” of employees is more than just their potential and performance. When you place your employees on the grid, think about why they are there: what has prevented them from achieving more, and what personal issues may be behind it. Maintain open and honest communication, and remember that the results of an assessment quickly become outdated.
• Don’t perform the 9-box grid evaluation just for the sake of an evaluation. Before you start an employee assessment, make sure you’re ready for the subsequent steps in talent management. It’s first necessary to have all the tools and resources you need to deliver employee development programs and personalized learning paths.

If you don’t have reliable training software, take a look at iSpring LMS. Experience the LMS firsthand with a 30-day trial or sign up for a free live demo where our eLearning experts will walk you through the platform’s features and help you decide if it’s right for your business.

FAQ 

Is the 9-box grid still relevant?

Yes. The value isn’t in the boxes themselves. It’s in giving managers a shared way to discuss employees before making important development or succession decisions.

What is the difference between performance and potential?

Performance answers, “How is this person doing now?” Potential asks something different: “How might they grow if the role changes?” Looking at both creates a more balanced view of talent.

How often should you perform a 9-box review?

A good rule of thumb is once or twice a year. The grid should change because employees have grown or the business has changed—not simply because it’s time to update it.

Should employees know their 9-box placement?

People rarely remember the name of the box they were placed in. They remember whether the feedback felt fair and whether anything meaningful happened afterward.

Who should participate in a 9-box talent review?

The quality of a 9-box talent review often depends on who’s sitting around the table. Managers contribute firsthand experience, HR helps to keep the discussion consistent, and senior leaders bring a wider view of future talent needs. Clear review criteria and a shared understanding of the process help everyone make fairer decisions.

How do you use the 9-box grid without bias?

Performance management software helps. However, the best way to reduce bias is to make sure no one is judging an employee alone. Shared criteria, different perspectives, and real examples tend to produce much more balanced reviews than individual opinions.

What should you do after a 9-box talent review?

The meeting shouldn’t end with a completed matrix. It should end with clear development priorities, someone who is responsible for following through, and a date to check what has changed.

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