To Cull or Not to Cull Bottom Perfomers...

[Judy McLeish]

At the Employee Factor, we thought we should ask - should you "cull or not cull" your bottom performers.

“If you’ve got 16 employees, at least two are turkeys.” Jack Welch

Jack Welch famously advocated firing the bottom-performing 10 per cent of staff every year. So did Steve Ballmer in April 2006, who admitted to culling one in every 15 employees every year and suggested that all businesses, large and small, would benefit from such an approach.

The question – what should companies do to manage their low performers? Low performers are said to make up one tenth of a company’s workforce. In addition to implementing a clear process to handle poor performers, there is another very controversial method to manage the bottom 10 per cent…implement an annual quota for removing underperforming staff.

The latest research from Hudson Recruitment shows that UK business leaders do want to dismiss an annual quota of underperforming staff. The findings reveal that 61% of senior UK bosses believe that a fixed target for annual staff dismissal is healthy.

According to the study, British business leaders acknowledged that there were distinct advantages to deliberately releasing average or below-average performers.

Ensuring strong team members do not carry weaker ones was cited as the main advantage (60%) of deliberately releasing average or below average performers.

Allowing underperforming staff to pursue a fresh challenge more suited to their abilities (50%).

Bottom-line improvement (36%).

Ensuring that training is spent on those that will really benefit (35%).

Increasing productivity (33%) also rated highly.

But the risks inherent to this strategy were also highlighted:

75% of respondents cited ‘introducing a culture of fear’ as a deterrent to a dismissal quota.

61% felt pursuing such a dismissal policy would lower morale within the workplace.

Just over 10% think that it will decrease motivation in the workplace.

While it was agreed that there are risks to this strategy, the problems associated with inaction may outweigh the risks.

Are you in favor of culling? Let us know your thoughts.

[David Zinger]

I have very mixed feelings about this. I think part of it is the word cull...it has such a negative connotation to me (Culling is the process of selection of surplus animals from an animal population. In a wild population the selection is often done by destroying the animal immediately, in a domesticated situation the culling process involves selection and the selling of surplus stock. ...) I don't want to destroy what we have built up yet I am nothing thinking an organization is just a social club to have people "hang around." I think I want to see if performance can be improved or enhanced and know that I have done all I can to try and help the person produce value. Of course I have a strong humanistic perspective. This is a good question and I shall ponder it more. I would really need to know on an individual basis why the person is not performing.

[Judy McLeish]

I agree David. I have mixed feelings as well. We all know that poor performers exist in every organization, but the key is how to deal with them. Frankly, unless done properly this could foster the culture of fear that is mentioned in the blog.

[Mark Askey]

David,

I think you hit on a good point that "cull" immediately provoke something negative and most people will probably respond more to the word than the tactic. That being said, this tactic is just a sign of a poor peformance and coaching systems in place.

I am not a big believer in a forced metric for removing a percentage of your salesforce that isn't peforming on an annual basis. I think this promotes thinking more about compliance environment rather than an "improve the people" environment. In a forced metric, your bottom 10% will obviously be focusing more on the fact they might be fired, rather than focusing on how they can improve. And your managers will spend absolutely not time working with that team because they know in a short while the system will do it for them. They will spend all their time just trying to get out of the bottom 10% rather than working towards their potential.

I think that management should really look at what is causing the bottom 10% to be the bottom 10%. If there is a poor development process for these people to improve and/or poor leaders who are not engaged with these people's needs as employees, then how can the employees improve? If there is a good training and development process; a good hiring process that target the correct candidates; and good managers who can interact on a level with employees to understand the obstacles; then I don't think there is a need for this metric.

Bad employees will remove themselves if the correct systems are in place. Managers won't have the bottom 10% hanging around for a year, because these employees will understand why they don't fit the job. They will leave in 90 days for other and better opportunities instead of waiting to be fired.

Plus there will always be a bottom 10%. I think the more important thing is to focus on the Top 25% and make sure they are working to their potential. A Top 25% executing at 100% will elminate any loss of productivity caused by the bottom 10%.

[Joe Hungler]

I think that this method lets supervisors off the hook.. Supervisors need to be trained in how to coach employees and to go down the documentation path towards firing them if they aren't working out. We try to head this off as immediately as possible. We make our 90 day probationary period a true test of if the new hire will be a positive addition to our team. If not, we move on. The key is empowering supervisors to truly lead and own their staff. The "culling" will take care of itself and the percentage will be irrelevant. I agree with the earlier post that said cutting the bottom 10% creates a culture of fear. I think that our method a)empowers supervisors so they aren't frustrated with underperforming staff and b)prevents us from going down the route of giving all the work to those that are doing well, thus burning them out.

[Doug Shaw]

Wow there's some good stuff in here. I suggest that this bottom 10% may not self correct by leaving of their own accord. Increasingly we are seeing that these people (oh dear I'm starting to create an underclass here....tread carefully) tend to hang around and have an adverse affect on more engaged staff. Anyone else spotting that?

Towers Perrin cover this issue extremely well in their global workforce study which is a fascinating read for a whole bunch of reasons.

[Michael Lee Stallard]

I don't care for GE's vitality curve if it is enforced as rule but feel that it's a good guideline. Usually there are a few individuals who are in the wrong role either because their talents don't fit the job or they've outgrown it. As a manager, I've always been willing to give employees I'm responsible for leading a loving push albeit with advance warning, much encouragement that the right position awaits them elsewhere, and they they have talents that will be appreciated in the right role. I'm willing to be a reference for them too and they can expect me to be honest in sharing their strengths as I see them. The people I lead know I care about them and that keeps morale high. They know that I expect excellence in their work product too. Furthermore, they know the underperformer wasn't the best person for the job, even if they liked him personally. There is a way to be honest with underperforming employees and yet care for and help them move on in their journey to find a role that fits their unique identity and gifts.

[Stephen Booth]

The issue I have with this process is that it is built on what is basically a self fulfilling prophesy, you will always have a bottom 10%, in fact half of your staff will be in your bottom 50% on any measure you choose. Every year you will be firing a tenth of your staff for no other reason than they happen to be in the bottom 10% of your organisation for the role they're in regardless of how good they are compared with the wider market. Your staff can be the top 10 people in the world but you're still going sack number 10? And replace them with number 11 or number 37 or number 9363?

I've worked in places where 'poorly performing' (relative to others in the same organisation not to any objective or broader yard stick) staff have been dismissed. There is a culture of fear which hits productivity. It also gets like a joke that has been circulating for some time in various forms:

Bob and Jim are camping in the jungle when suddenly a large tiger appears and starts to stalk towards them as they sit in their tent. Seeing this Bob pulls on his running shoes.
Jim says, "Don't be stupid, you can't out run a tiger!"

Bob replies, "I don't have to outrun the tiger, i just have to out run you."

In this case the tiger is the sacking for the bottom 10%. People look for opportunities to sabotage to sabotage others, they don't need to increase their own performance to avoid the sack, just make sure that there are at least 10% of the total people performing worse than them.

Obviously neither of these, culture of fear or sabotage, is helpful to developing engaged employees.

Another problem is that performance is often to a greater or lesser degree subjective, even in sales one person may make more unit sales in a particular year than another but they may have an easier area than the other person or maybe that other person has just had an off year but is normally one of the stars. What gets put on the annual performance review is often more about how the manager perceives that person's performance. The manager, depending on how they feel about each individual may or may not take those other factors into consideration. A good manager will take those factors into consideration but, as many people who have looked at the area (including Drucker) have concluded, there is a real shortage of good managers. Also bad managers tend to foster other bad managers.

Stephen

[Denise O'Berry]

I think culling is a horrible term - and practice. It serves only to demoralize staff that is "left behind" and creates a culture focused on the wrong things.

There should never be a reason to let someone go if the company's recruiting, interviewing and onboarding processes are fully developed and aimed at getting the right people into the right jobs so they can excel.

Time should be invested in supervisors and managers to teach them how to bring the right employees into the company. And the company should have a strategic approach to searching for, and retaining those workers.

[Terrence Seamon]

How did I miss this topic?

At any rate, i agree it is a horror. People are not widgets.

If someone is not pulling their weight, a supervisor needs to deal with it.

Terry

[Kevin Burns - Attitude Expert]

I have no problem with this practice. As a matter of fact, if you really think about it, your Number One performer today could be let go in ten years from now (based upon each new replacement being a better performer). My question is, why is there so much opposition to improving the performance of the employees? This isn't a social club. It's called "work" for a reason. We're not little kids. We're adults in an adult world and if I don't fit in an organization (from a performance perspective), how do you think that affects the rest of the staff who are performing? Not getting rid of someone whose performance is sub-par may, in fact, cause more problems in the workplace. If you let the performance of one person slide, you have set a precedent. That precedent says it's OK to slide. And what about other employees who see the weak member of the organization and may have to increase their own work loads to compensate for a poor performer? Is that fair to everyone else?

Those who "choose" to continuously self-improve will get better at the job. Those who "choose" to not self-improve will be let go. Sometimes the best thing (but not the easiest thing) is let people go who are struggling in a job they may be ill-prepared or incapable of doing - not matter how much training you give them.

When people remain in a job they cannot manage, are we doing them a service by leaving them there? Surely they were meant to be good at something but if this isn't it, why are we not helping them move on to discover their unique talents? Leadership isn't always easy. Sometimes leaders have to make to tough decisions.

I think we're arguing semantics on the word "culling." It really is what it is - let's not beat about the bush. By removing the poor-performing 10% annually, you are, by design, improving the overall performance, service and reward in the workplace. Some people are meant to be in some jobs, others are not. Had I not been "culled" in my sales job twelve years ago, I never would have gone on to write seven books nor enjoy the work I do now. It all happens for a reason. I'm glad it did.

Kevin

[David Zinger]

Kevin,

I appreciate the passion of your perspective. I think individuals are responsible for their performance but the leaders, managers, and organization are accountable. How much of low or poor performance do we attribute to the performer and how much to the system and organization, etc? It can be easy to blame the victim but it can also be easy to victimize ourselves and not take responsibility.

I know Michael Jordan was not so great at basketball when he was young. He was not culled but he was cut. To his credit he REBOUNDED!

Like everything else in the field of employee engagement it is more complex than meets the simple eye. I am glad that you benefited from being "culled" and found your true "culling.":)

David

[Terrence Seamon]

David,
You cracked me up with your line, "I am glad that you benefited from being "culled" and found your true "culling.":)"

How unexpected to be smiling in a thread about a highly offensive practice.

Terry