EXPRESS: The Impact of Ecosystem Shocks on the Operational Performance of Worker-heavy Systems in the Agricultural Domain: The Role of Cognitive Load

Temporary economic shocks in local employment ecosystems – events that create temporary alternate employment opportunities for workers – tend to create operational challenges for firms. We investigate two dimensions of these challenges faced by firms that engage workers performing low-skilled tasks in the agricultural industry. We seek to understand (i) which workers leave during these shocks, and (ii) whether workers who choose to stay exhibit any change in their productivity. Both of these answers ultimately determine the resilience of firms during the shocks. We present data from a natural experiment in an agricultural company. The data is for two farms, where workers performed the same task but used two different protocols that differ in cognitive load – the mental effort required to manage and coordinate tasks – at two levels: Higher and Lower. Our findings indicate that, at an aggregate level, shocks in the labor ecosystem increase the strain on farming companies by increasing worker turnover rates. However, during the shock period, the workers who remained with the focal firm demonstrated increased productivity. In the subsequent post hoc analysis, we examine whether worker performance before a shock (as measured by pre-shock productivity) impacts turnover and productivity during shock periods. We find that workers following the lower cognitive load protocol were more likely to leave during the shock if their productivity was low. In contrast, workers following the higher cognitive load protocol were equally likely to leave at all productivity levels. Similarly, for the lower cognitive load protocol, the productivity change during shock was proportional to a worker’s original productivity. In contrast, workers following the higher cognitive load protocol increased their productivity by the same amount across all levels of pre-shock productivity. As such, these findings highlight the differential impacts of cognitive engagement and workload on worker retention and productivity in manufacturing and production settings within a low-skill context. Our findings suggest that work design strategies, especially those that keep workers cognitively engaged at work are crucial for mitigating the negative effects of labor shocks. By recognizing the role of cognitive load in low-skill work, managers can help create more stable teams and more predictable productivity levels, thereby increasing organizational resilience in a volatile labor market.