Worker Skills and Organizational Spillovers: Evidence from Linked Training and Communications Data

Abstract: How does increasing the skill of some workers affect the output of the organization as a whole? To answer this question, we study the effects of a randomized training program that occurred in a Colombian government agency. While trained workers substantially improved their individual production, we find that spillovers affecting managers' productivity are nearly as large as the direct gains from training. We use email data to understand the mechanism behind these spillovers and find that two changes explain the benefits for managers. First, trained workers send fewer emails to their bosses, and boss productivity increases as emails decline. Second, relatively senior trained frontline workers form an informal helping layer between junior frontline workers and managers, providing assistance to untrained workers and further reducing managers' need to offer help. In our setting, accounting for intra-organization spillovers doubles the implied return from upskilling workers.