Report

Visier Insights™ Report: The Individual Contributor Penalty

Individual contributors pay a penalty in lower pay and fewer promotions than team leaders.

In this special academic edition of the Visier Insights™ Report series, we present this research effort by a team from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Based on their analyses of over 100,000 live and real-time employee records in the Visier Community Data, we're provided a unique view into the systematic facts about the role of individual contributors compared to team leaders.

Findings from this report include:

  • Individual contributors are prevalent in organizations at all levels
  • Individual contributors earn less, have slower pay growth, and are less likely to get promoted than team leaders
  • Strategies for retaining top, non-managerial talent