Speaking at the CIPD annual conference in Manchester, Grant told delegates that altruistic workers, who he defines as "givers", are polarised in their professional success and tend to be either in the top or bottom 25% of performers.
He added that HR leaders must ensure givers are able to succeed and go on to drive success throughout the business.
"For me a culture of successful givers is marked by two conditions," he said. "Number one is that everyone is motivated to help without asking for anything in return. And number two is that when they do, it actually helps them to succeed rather than sacrificing their own success."
One way Grant proposes to do this is to tailor reward systems to recognise collaborative behaviours and not employees who value their own achievements above those of the business, who he defines as "takers".
"Many organisations do a good job screening out the takers, they do a great job of getting people to think of helping others in domains that they enjoy and excel at, but then they reward the wrong kind of behaviour," he said.
"If you only measure individual accomplishments and achievements it's really easy for takers to rise. What you need to do is find a clever way of indexing not only what someone has accomplished – but also how those accomplishments affected others."
Another way employers can take the most value from those willing to offer support to colleagues is by creating a culture of "help-seeking", according to Grant.
"Up to 90% of all giving in organisations starts with a request," he said. "But a lot of people don't ask. They don't want to be vulnerable and they want to be self-reliant.
"But if no-one asks you will have a lot of frustrated givers in your organisation. They want to help but they have no idea how or who would benefit from their contributions."
