Who is productive, and who isn’t? Here’s how to tell.

By Aaron De Smet and Angelika Reich

More than 50 percent of workers say their productivity is down. Managers who understand what motivates different types of workers can boost their engagement and help them find more satisfaction at work.

If productivity is down in your organization, it may be a sign that at least some employees are unmotivated and unhappy—and that other employees are feeding on that dissatisfaction, further eroding productivity and creating attrition. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey senior partner Aaron De Smet and partner Angelika Reich talk about McKinsey’s latest research on employee productivity and share their perspectives on a few types of workers, ranging from those who bring fellow employees down to those who raise them up.

The McKinsey Podcast is cohosted by Roberta Fusaro and Lucia Rahilly.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Data reveals significant disengagement numbers

Roberta Fusaro: So we’re in this new world of work now where we’ve got hybrid and remote models. And managers are struggling to figure out who’s being productive and who isn’t. Angelika, Aaron, you and your colleagues at McKinsey have done some research trying to provide more insight or some way of thinking differently about employee productivity. What did that research reveal?

Aaron De Smet: It revealed quite a lot. The question we had was, if we survey employees and ask, “How are you doing? How are you performing? How are you feeling?” will they be honest? And the variability in the responses we got suggests to us that they are being honest. We got some real interesting data: everywhere from people who said, “I am not performing at my job,” to quite a few others who said, “I am doing a lot at work. I’m really doing well.” So across multiple countries, a survey of over 15,000 employees illuminates a lot, and a lot of the fears are real.

Roberta Fusaro: Angelika, anything to add about those fears?

Angelika Reich: We did come across a couple of surprises, I would say, in this data. Because first of all, the number of people who are strongly or mildly disengaged but still in the organization is quite large. And that bears a high risk for productivity if organizations don’t take action.
The quitters

Roberta Fusaro: Let’s talk about the quitter archetype. They compose about 10 percent of a typical organization. How would you describe them?

Angelika Reich: The quitters are the people who are the least satisfied in the organization and the least committed. That’s why they are planning to quit. We did see that there is also a group of people in this archetype who are being pulled away because they’re great performers and they’ve been offered a better place to go.

When looking at that group, it’s important to think about them in two ways: the portion of them who are being pushed away because they’re just dissatisfied and want to get out and the portion of this group who are being pulled away to something better.

And when taking action, it’s important to look at those two categories separately and to think about who are the ones we want to keep in the organization because they’re high performers and who are the ones we would actually like to actively manage out.

Roberta Fusaro: If they’re high performing, what can companies do to reengage them? How might you convince them to stay?

Angelika Reich: It starts with the basics. You have to have a good compensation package, thinking about whether there is a possibility to offer them a change of responsibilities, a great career path. But we do see that it’s even more important for managers to really be personally involved and connected with top performers so that they want to stay in the organization. We see in some of our additional research that relationships with management explain a majority of people’s interpersonal experiences on the job and their commitment to work.

Aaron De Smet: The landscape in the war for talent has changed. That or the barriers preventing a high-performing professional or manager from leaving one company and going to another have been lowered. They’re lower for a bunch of reasons.

One reason is it used to be that typically, if you were going to move companies, you would be asked to relocate. Now, a lot of companies are saying, “No. You might have to travel a bit. But you don’t have to relocate. You don’t have to move and move your family to come work here.”

There used to be a stigma attached to going from one to two to three employers over the course of a couple of years. That is, what’s wrong with that person such that they can’t keep a job? That stigma is likely gone. And so, for a number of reasons, the barriers are lower.

Because of that, the war for talent has heated up. People are saying, “Hey, if I’m not happy here, it doesn’t take much for me to start looking around and maybe try another employer. And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll quit again.” So the level of quitting for high performers is just higher. And I’m not sure it’s going to go down.

Roberta Fusaro: How do you identify the quitters in particular? Because there’s this whole phenomenon of quiet quitting, whereby people are just going along to get along. And I wonder if they’re just hard to see.

Aaron De Smet: They are a bit harder to see, because a lot of our management tools and practices were evolved in an in-person work environment. And now that most work environments are much more hybrid, it’s a lot easier for the quiet quitters to hide. One of the ways to find them is to look for them.

Ask people. Have an authentic conversation where you check in and ask, “How are you doing? Are you productive? Are you satisfied? Are you engaged?” In a few cases, people will lie and not give you the honest answer.

But in many other cases, if you really listen, the answer will be there. You have to look at performance by considering the following: what are people actually contributing? What is the value they’re contributing? What are the decisions they are helping to make? What are the deliverables that they’re helping with? And it just raises the bar for managers to be more plugged in with regard to how people are working.
The disruptors

Roberta Fusaro: How does the disruptor archetype, which we estimate to take up about 11 percent of the workforce, differ from the quitters?

Angelika Reich: Disruptors are not only not pulling their weight but they are also negatively affecting those around them, because they’re actively disrupting the organization. And that means that they are dissatisfied and they’re uncommitted just like the quitters. But they’re likely to channel that frustration toward the organization instead of just trying to stay out of sight and quietly quit.

And that is quite a dangerous dynamic to have. Because they may be pulling other people down with them—especially groups that are still engaged or mildly disengaged, but really at the edge of disengagement and underperformance. So with the disruptors, it’s really important to understand this point: what are the root causes of the disruption and of their dissatisfaction?

And is there a possibility to turn them around? Because with disruptors in any change process, if you manage to actively turn them around, you can build great allies and people who are positively influencing the organization and engaging others around them.

But if you’re not able to turn them around, they will continue to drag others down. And then the only solution you have left is to actively manage them out of the organization. So here, it’s really important to understand the following: what are the root causes? Is it possible to influence them and then take clear action in either direction?

Aaron De Smet: The disruptors, this 11 percent, are basically telling us, “I’m not doing the bare minimum.” Other people are carrying their weight, carrying their load.

So the people who are productive and are working start to see that, and they think, “My workload is increasing, because these other folks aren’t doing their jobs. And yet they’re just hiding out, not doing anything and getting paid the same thing I am.” That is inherently demoralizing.

There’s even a more toxic version of that for people who aren’t pulling their weight and are actively creating friction in the organization. They constantly complain. They’re constantly negative. They suck the energy out of a room. So they’re actually showing up and complaining and undermining and resisting every attempt to try to improve or innovate or work better or work smarter.

You have to turn them around. And many of them probably can be turned around. But if they can’t be, you’re better off having them quit. You’re better off having those folks leave than letting them hang around and demoralize everybody else.