Antecedents of Workforce Differentiation

The practice of workforce differentiation consists of assigning different categories of value to different employees in order to manage each group of employees according to their perceived value for the firm. This study investigates the antecedents of workforce differentiation. Specifically, it investigates which individual-level variables account for the classification of an employee in a particular category such as “talent” or “high potential”. It is hypothesized that structural variables, such as employee human capital and objective employee status, as well as attitudes towards employer and supervisor, such as person- organization fit and leader-member exchange, predict categorization in a workforce differentiation system. The results show that person-organization fit, leader-member exchange, existing “executive” status and human capital are all positively related to ranking in a workforce differentiation scheme.