In categorizing employees based on their level of satisfaction, thriving stars—those who are most engaged—comprise only about 4 percent of a typical organization. Yet, note senior partners Aaron De Smet and Brooke Weddle and colleagues, these thriving workers have an outsize positive impact on their organizations and their influence has the potential to grow as generative AI becomes more prevalent. Thriving is a state that applies across industries, from educators and healthcare specialists to data engineers and retail associates.
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A horizontal bar chart shows 6 different archetypes of employees as segments of an organization’s workforce, from least to most engaged. From left to right, from least to most engaged, they are the quitters, at 10%; the disruptors, at 11%; the mildly disengaged, at 32%; the reliable and committed, at 38%; and the thriving stars, at 4%. One final archetype, comprising ~5% of the workforce, are double-dippers. Double-dippers are workers who are holding 2 or more full-time, salaried jobs simultaneously, likely without their employers knowing about it. They are found across all worker archetypes who are staying in the organization, excluding quitters.
Note: Attrition may result from a combination of factors and is not solely driven by satisfaction, although the least satisfied employees are most likely to voluntarily leave their jobs. Footnote: Estimates based on median S&P 500 size (19,900 employees) and salary ($71,936), kept consistent for all groups. Performance and well-being data were self-reported and normalized to reduce issues with skewed high ratings when looking at the overall sample (n = 14,272).
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To read the article, see “To defend against disruption, build a thriving workforce,” May 8, 2024.