Productivity Tip: Stop Moving Your Star Workers

Companies are often eager to land the big fish—a massive order that will boost production and revenue. Yet firms might not understand the costs of serving a large buyer, says Jorge Tamayo, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School.

“We know very little about how the firm needs to adjust internally when they are working with a buyer that is so large, and the [firm] cannot fail [in delivering on the order],” he says.

Examining worker-level productivity data from a large readymade garment manufacturer, with 50 factories and over 100,000 employees in India, Tamayo and his fellow researchers found that when the company received a large order, managers regularly shifted the most talented workers to the slowest production lines in an attempt to keep up with demand.

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