How newcomers and incumbents adapt their daily performance to others in jobs where social interaction is unnecessary.

In traditional work group settings, individual employees are known to adapt their behavior to that of peers. It is less clear how individuals adapt their behavior in work settings where tasks are independent and the role of social interaction is minimized. This study examines day-to-day performance adaptation among incumbents and newcomers in an automated Fortune 500 e-commerce warehouse where employees work in shifts yet are paid based solely on individual performance. We contribute to performance adaptation literature by exploring whether employees adjust their daily performance based on real-time information from salient others in close physical proximity. Additionally, we extend newcomer socialization research by examining differences in how incumbents and newcomers utilize performance cues from others. We find that incumbent daily performance is more strongly related to that of salient others than is newcomer daily performance. Our findings offer practical insights into an understudied but rapidly growing segment of the workforce. The findings also highlight that social influence continues to play a key role in job performance even in jobs specifically designed to minimize the role of social factors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).