Engaged employees are one of the strongest advantages an organization can have. They’re more productive, more committed, and far less likely to leave. That’s why companies invest so heavily in building engagement.

But there’s a hidden problem quietly undermining that investment, and it often comes down to a simple, everyday decision: when extra work appears, who gets it?

Research shows that managers consistently assign additional, non-core tasks to their most motivated employees – the very people organizations most want to retain. While this instinct feels logical, it creates unintended consequences that erode engagement, performance, and retention over time.

The Hidden Bias in Task Assignment

Across multiple studies involving more than 4,000 employees and managers, researchers found that highly motivated employees received the majority of extra work, up to 70% in some cases, even when others had similar performance and experience.

Why does this happen? Managers often rely on two assumptions:

• If someone enjoys their work, they’ll be happy to take on more.
• Highly engaged employees are less likely to burn out.

Both assumptions are flawed.

Motivation is task-specific. Just because someone loves presenting to clients or solving complex problems doesn’t mean they’ll enjoy administrative work, side projects, or extra responsibilities that pull them away from what they find meaningful.

In fact, when highly motivated employees are asked to take on unrelated tasks, their drop in job satisfaction is significantly greater than that of less engaged employees, because they’re being pulled away from the work they care about most, while also carrying a heavier load.

The Impact on Performance and Retention

This pattern affects both engagement and performance.

In one study, managers were asked to assign a tedious side task that would interrupt someone’s primary work. They overwhelmingly chose the more motivated employee. As a result, that employee’s core performance suffered, and their chances of earning a performance-based reward decreased.

In trying to rely on their strongest people, managers were unintentionally penalizing them.

Over time, this dynamic leads to a predictable outcome: your most engaged employees begin to feel overused, underappreciated, and disconnected from the work they once loved. Meanwhile, less engaged employees remain unaffected.

A Simple Shift That Makes a Big Difference

The good news is that this problem is behavioral, which means it’s relatively easy to fix.

When extra work is distributed more evenly, highly motivated employees report higher job satisfaction and lower intent to leave. Just as importantly, less engaged employees are not negatively impacted by taking on a fairer share of the work.

In other words, organizations can protect their top talent without creating new problems elsewhere.

Three Practical Ways to Improve Task Distribution

1. Track who gets extra work
Most managers aren’t aware they’re overloading the same people. Encouraging them to keep a simple log of task assignments can quickly reveal patterns and prompt more balanced decisions.

2. Batch decisions instead of reacting in the moment
When managers assign tasks one at a time, they tend to default to the most reliable person. But when they allocate multiple tasks at once whether it is weekly, monthly, or quarterly, they’re more likely to distribute work evenly.

3. Rethink assumptions about burnout
Even employees who love their jobs have limits. Engagement doesn’t make someone immune to exhaustion, especially when extra work isn’t meaningful to them. Helping managers understand this can immediately shift behavior.

Don’t Undermine What You’re Trying to Build

Organizations often encourage employees to find meaning and purpose in their work. But when managers use that passion as a reason to give them more, and often less meaningful work, engagement begins to erode.

The employees most at risk are your best ones: the people who care deeply, perform consistently, and are hardest to replace.

With small, intentional changes, organizations can protect their investment in engagement, improve fairness, and ensure their top talent stays focused on the work that matters most.