Too many office slackers

Slackers are getting off light in New Zealand, especially those working in the private sector where managers are perceived to be too tolerant of lazy staff.

According to a survey, 25 per cent of private sector employees and 31 per cent of public sector employees think their employers are too tolerant of poor performers. And employers perceived as particularly tolerant of poor performance were disproportionately represented in local government, health, education and retail sectors, reveals workplace survey and analysis firm John Robertson and Associates.

The findings form part of the company's 2004 annual Unlimited/JRA Best Places to Work in New Zealand survey, which gathered responses from 161 New Zealand organisations and 18,000 employees. The research, conducted between July and September last year, links organisations with employees who think their employers are too tolerant of poor performers with lower mean revenue growth, higher staff turnover and lower staff morale than organisations perceived to be adequately addressing the issue.

John Robertson, director for John Robertson and Associates, says many employers and managers are disturbed by the survey's findings because they suggest tolerating poor performance is akin to condoning practices that are detrimental to business.

"A buffalo herd moves only as fast as the slowest buffalo. Natural selection theorists say predators that kill off the weakest and slowest members of a herd actually help the herd because they improve the survival chances of the remainder. Yet New Zealand workplaces with high tolerance thresholds for poor performance provide a haven for the slow and the weak," says Robertson.

He says the results of the 2005 version of the annual survey, completed but not yet been published, reveal a similar ratio of public and private sector respondents perceive their employers as tolerant of poor performers. This suggests New Zealand organisations have not succeeded in addressing the issue.

Andrew Mclachlan, performance capability manager for Meridian Energy, says managing poor performers is an issue frequently talked about but rarely acted upon by people managers who pay attention to future supply of workforce and succession planning to the detriment of performance management.

"It's an area that's not progressing. Regular performance reviews and managing not-so-good performance are critical for successful people management. If people are under-performing, managers need to be communicating when the train starts up not when it starts to go off the track," says Maclachlan.

Because there are many reasons why people under-perform, a one-size-fits-all approach to resolving poor performance doesn't work. Examples include people without a full understanding of job requirements; those lacking the right skills or adequate feedback from management; and those with personal problems. While these are all issues a people manager should be on top of, many find it difficult to manage poor performance to a positive outcome, says Maclachlan.

"By nature, most of us don't like conflict so too many people managers cross the line and become almost a friend to [under performing] employees. When performing employees see this, the manager loses credibility and the whole team begins to under-perform," says Maclachlan.

Alternatively, high performers might choose to leave the organisation and move on rather than put up with a performance imbalance they perceive as unfair - the last thing a labour-hungry employer needs. With current labour shortages set to continue indefinitely, it's almost certainly worth the effort to to turn poor performers around, creating useful if not top notch team members. At the same time, die-hard under-performers shouldn't be allowed to drag everyone down with them; so how can employers deal with them?

"It's not about hard-nosed, whip-cracking management, but creating an organisational culture where there is 'performance peer pressure' that makes the slacker feel uncomfortable. Slackers are spooked by things like performance measurement and regular feedback," says Robertson.

He says people managers do themselves a favour if they realise managing poor performers is less about attacking the individual and more about building up a fiercely enthusiastic performance culture across a team.

"Our research strongly indicates that performance is a cultural phenomenon; if you look closely at an organisation that truly values high performance you will not surprisingly find a lot of people who want to perform and feel a strong sense of commitment and loyalty to the organisation," says Robertson.

Another reason to avoid whip-cracking is that poor performance can sometimes require a little understanding.

As Maclachlan points out, some people under-perform through personal issues; a good people manager will begin to communicate the performance effects of those issues and offer support or resources to help. In successful cases, a high performance work environment will place enough pressure on an under-performer with personal problems. The problem will either then resolve and the individual will strive to perform at a level acceptable to their peers or will resign of their own accord.

In 2003, Nigel Nicholson suggested in the Harvard Business Review that instead of pushing solutions on problem employees, smart people managers can instead 'pull' solutions out of them by creating circumstances in which the employee can channel their motivation toward achievable goals.

"Involving the employee in the solving of performance issues is integral to performance culture. Sitting back and waiting for natural attrition is too costly," says Robertson.

Obviously, it's important to try to recruit high performers in the first place, but to keep them that way requires quality leadership, vision and values; recognising and rewarding the right performance, and managing the consequences of poor performance, say the experts.

Maclachlan says to create a performance culture where people enjoy performing and help hold others accountable for their performance, managers and other leaders need to undertake performance management training and be prepared to be performance-managed themselves. Once in performance management mode, the process needs to be tightly managed and timeframes and commitments made staff members honoured.

Presumably, performance management specialists, analysts and HR consultants have been repeating these messages for some time. So why aren't New Zealand organisations getting it? Part of the reason may be the number of small businesses in New Zealand - more than half of the organisations surveyed employed less than 100 people.

Small business managers have less time to think about how to manage poor performance and often do not employ a dedicated people management expert. However, Robertson says whether large or small, the main problem of organisations that tolerate poor performers is one of attitude.

"An organisation that hasn't scored well in the survey on the issue of managing poor performance will typically point to employment laws and say 'it's too hard to fire people'. But organisations that score well tell you it is nothing to do with employment laws and everything to do with performance culture. He says while employment law and litigation around discrimination and harassment has to be taken into consideration, successful people managers know the existence of employment law requires a greater determination on the part of employers to follow through on performance issues.

Maclachlan says too many businesses rate a large proportion of staff as simply "effective". Given the numbers of staff in this category, the ability to even slightly raise the performance levels should significantly improve overall business performance.

While it all sounds a bit cliche, managing poor performers is mainly about creating a culture where people want to perform and start treating the business as their own, says Robertson.

"If the employee thinks of the business as their own and sees people slacking off, they're going to address that with them, peer to peer," he says.

As anyone who has been to school knows, such peer pressure can be a powerful force for change.