Today's Workplace Climate Exposes Slackers
By Kevin Smith Staff Writer© Pasadena Star-News, October 22, 2006
Firms take various approaches to under-achievers.
We've all been there.
You're laboring away at work. The paperwork keeps piling up and the boss is asking for more. Then you happen to glance over at a fellow employee - an employee who is lounging around, talking on the phone to friends and generally doing nothing productive.
These co-workers, otherwise known as "slackers," may seem like nothing more than a minor annoyance. But studies conducted by Leadership IQ, a Washington, D.C.-based leadership training and research firm, reveal these underperformers can be damaging to a company.
"We surveyed about 70,000 employees," said Mark Murphy, Leadership IQ's president and CEO. "We really wanted to understand how people felt about working with low performers. Eighty-seven percent said it made them want to change jobs."
Murphy said employees don't like the idea of working alongside co-workers who don't pull their own weight - particularly if everyone around them is forced to pick up the slack.
"We also asked senior leaders if they thought their companies were doing a good job of managing or dealing with the slacker problem," Murphy said. "Only 14 percent said they were ... and everyone says it's a huge problem."
And it's a problem that has become more apparent in today's work climate, according to Gary Kaplan, president of Gary Kaplan & Associates, an executive search firm based in Pasadena.
"Years ago, you had organizations that were more rich with people and more layers," he said. "These people weren't noticed and could be lost. But in today's environment, the prevailing rule is to do more with less. Organizations have pared down the fat and when you have people like this, they stick out like a sore thumb."
In many cases, co-workers won't tolerate it, Kaplan said.
"Either directly or indirectly, they will do something about it," he said. "They are not at all reticent about talking to management about it."
Kaplan also noted that many of today's companies operate with a "team culture."
"People are putting in long hours, and compensation is more directly tied to performance, not just by individuals but by group performance," he said. "You'd better pull your weight."
Pete Tzavalas, client relationship manager for Capital H Group, a business consulting company in Long Beach, said managers are often reluctant to address the problem of slackers in the workplace.
"They don't want to deal with the confrontation, so they give annual performance reviews that say the employee `meets expectations,"' he said. "But when you get to the point where the manager has finally had it, human resources will say, `How were their last three performance evaluations?"'
Then the manager will have to start documenting the problems from scratch.
"As a general rule, the clearer you can make your expectations, the easier it is to get things done," Murphy said. "Once you've done that, it becomes clear who the real slackers are and you can come to a decision pretty quickly."
Murphy said managers often don't have the necessary training to deal with under-achieving workers.
"There isn't a lot of incentive because they don't see how this is causing them trouble or dampening results," he said. "A lot of managers just don't engage with their employees enough."
