I have been observing that when bad employees (lazy, toxic, incompetent, etc) employees are not dealt with, it causes high performer to leave the company creating a downward spiral where there is an higher proportion of bad employees which won’t be fired because all the best employees left ( and there isn’t enough to replace then) prompting a next generation of employees either quitting early or falling into the ranks of what has become an out of control work culture.
Has this phenomenon been formally named and studied?