Catalyst Center for Work Innovation: Research Deep Dive

Organizations frequently fail to penalize toxic behavior among top performers and senior leaders due to status leniency and motivated moral reasoning, a systemic disparity known as the consequence gap. This uneven enforcement damages workplace morale, drives away conscientious employees, and mirrors...

Sickness presenteeism, the practice of attending work while ill, is driven largely by organizational systems rather than personal choice. Studies demonstrate that punitive attendance policies and insufficient paid sick leave heavily pressure vulnerable and hourly employees to labor through contagiou...

Organizations routinely promote top-performing employees into management roles for visible traits like confidence and ambition, despite these attributes rarely predicting effective leadership. This systemic error, known as the promotion paradox, leads to diminished team performance, lower employee r...

Workforce reductions are increasingly common due to financial pressures and technological shifts like artificial intelligence, yet they frequently damage organizational trust, employee wellbeing, and institutional knowledge when handled poorly. Recent evidence from federal employee exit surveys demo...

Recent data reveals a stark perceptual divide between executives and early-career employees regarding workplace priorities. While human resources leaders frequently dismiss younger staff as flexible job-hoppers, extensive research demonstrates that new workers overwhelmingly prioritize stability, fa...

This research examines the pervasive frontline information gap that deskless employees face across various industries, highlighting how an overabundance of disjointed communication channels creates confusion, inefficiency, and stress. It analyzes the downward, upward, and lateral dimensions of this ...

Many organizations, including government agencies and technology giants, are bringing back forced rating curves and performance caps to address rampant score inflation and improve accountability. However, research demonstrates that these restrictive grading systems often rely on flawed, rater-specif...

Insufficient sleep is a pervasive organizational risk rather than merely a personal lifestyle issue, severely impairing cognitive functions, decision-making quality, and workplace safety across various demanding professions. Chronic sleep deprivation frequently forces executives and safety-critical ...

Modern knowledge work has dissolved the traditional boundaries of the workday, trapping employees in an always-on culture driven by digital devices and implicit availability expectations. This constant connectivity severely impairs psychological detachment, leading to widespread employee exhaustion,...

Reduced working time has emerged as a central topic in modern management, driven by proposed legislation like the U.S. Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act and widespread international pilots. Recent empirical research, including a significant multi-country study published in Nature Human Behavior, demonstr...