Are Your Good Workers Paying the Price for Slackers?

Jan. 1, 2020
CLEVELAND (Jan. 1, 2007) - Your best, brightest and hardest-working employees may be bearing the brunt of undue burdens brought on by the lowest-performing members of your work force, according to a series of surveys on staff-management relationship
EMPLOYEE RELATIONSAre Your Good Workers Paying the Price for Slackers? CLEVELAND (Jan. 1, 2007) - Your best, brightest and hardest-working employees may be bearing the brunt of undue burdens brought on by the lowest-performing members of your work force, according to a series of surveys on staff-management relationship issues. Such pressures frequently cause top workers to seek employment elsewhere, much to the detriment of the entire operation. "Frankly, we treat our high performers worse than any other employee," says Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ Inc., a motivational, training and research firm based in Washington, DC.

"When a manager has a tough project upon which the whole company depends, to whom do they turn? Who gets the late hours and the stress? It's not the low performers, because managers want the project done right. Instead, managers turn to their handful of high performers," Murphy says.

"Over and over, we ask our high performers to go above and beyond, making their jobs tough and burning them out at a terrible pace," he adds. "Meanwhile, low performers often get easier jobs because their bosses dread dealing with them and may avoid them altogether. The worst part of this is that we typically cause our high performers to quit."

A nationwide Leadership IQ study of employees and managers in a variety of industries found that 47 percent of high performers are actively pursuing other jobs, while just 18 percent of the low performers are looking to move on. Twenty-five percent of mid-level performers are seeking employment elsewhere, according to the study.

"While it's terrible that almost half of high performers are thinking about quitting, what's perhaps even worse is that low performers want to stay," Murphy says. "High performers keep companies in business, so every company is at risk if these people leave. If you lose some low performers, you might actually be better off. But when your best people quit, revenue drops, quality suffers and snafus increase. Even large companies can take a big hit with the departure of just a few key employees."

Leadership IQ compiled surveys from 70,305 employees, managers and executives at 116 commercial businesses and healthcare organizations of all sizes.

The results revealed that 87 percent of employees believe that working with a low performer has made them want to change jobs; 93 percent contend that a slacker colleague in the ranks has decreased their own productivity. Yet, only 14 percent of senior executives say their company effectively manages low performers, and just 17 percent of middle managers answer that they feel comfortable improving or removing low performers.

The employee survey asked 45 questions about work force issues, such as employee loyalty, corporate strategy and leadership effectiveness. In follow-up questionnaires, 6,241 employees were asked to list five characteristics that defined a low performer. The Top five responses were, in order of importance:

* Negative attitude.

* Stirs up trouble.

* Blames others.

* Lacks initiative.

* Incompetence.

"Low performers can feel like emotional vampires, sucking the energy out of everyone around them," Murphy says. "It's one of the great management misnomers that low performers' major problem is technical incompetence. While some lack skills, most low performers are so identified because of a difficult attitude."

Though it may seem paradoxical, Murphy notes that leaders may have to remove their worst employees in order to keep their best employees.

"When the overwhelming majority of employees say that working with low performers makes them want to quit their jobs, leaders should accept this as a wake-up call and tackle this issue immediately," he advises. "Because if low performers start dictating the company's culture, productivity, quality and service will all decline precipitously - and high performers will avoid your company like the plague."

Murphy says he believes that, since just 14 percent of senior executives think their companies address this issue effectively, there's a big advantage for those who can turn this around. To do this, however, companies must invest more time and energy in training managers on how to solve these problems.

A lot of this difficulty can be avoided by directing more attention toward interviewing prospective employees to discern disagreeable personality types, Murphy says.

Why new hires fail According to another study by Leadership IQ, 46 percent of newly hired employees will fail within 18 months, while only 19 percent will achieve unequivocal success. "But, contrary to popular belief, technical skills are not the primary reason why new hires fail; instead, poor interpersonal skills dominate the list - flaws (that) many of their managers admit were overlooked during the interview process," says Murphy. The survey's findings include: * 26 percent of new hires fail because they can't accept feedback. *  23 percent fail because they're unable to understand and manage emotions. * 17 percent fail because they lack the necessary motivation to excel. * 15 percent fail because they have the wrong temperament for the job. * 11 percent fail because they lack the necessary technical skills. The detailed, three-year study conducted in-depth reviews with 5,247 hiring managers from 312 companies. They collectively hired more than 20,000 employees during the study period. "While the failure rate for new hires is distressing, it should not be surprising," says Murphy. "Eighty-two percent of managers reported that in hindsight, their interview process with these employees elicited subtle clues that they would be headed for trouble. But during the interviews, managers were too focused on other issues, too pressed for time, or lacked confidence in their interviewing abilities to heed the warning signs." Murphy explains how typical interview processes fixate on ensuring that new hires are technically competent, while coachability, emotional intelligence, motivation and temperament are more predictive of a new hire's success or failure. Technical skills won't really matter if the employee isn't open to improving, alienates coworkers, lacks drive or has the wrong personality. The study tracked the success and failure of new hires, and interviewed managers about their hiring tactics and new hires' performance, personality and potential. Upon completing the interviews, Leadership IQ compiled, categorized and distilled the Top 5 reasons why new hires "failed" (defined as being terminated, left under pressure or received disciplinary action or negative performance reviews). The top areas of failure and the percentage of respondents were:

About the Author

James Guyette

James E. Guyette is a long-time contributing editor to Aftermarket Business World, ABRN and Motor Age magazines.

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