3 Categories Of Employees You Shouldn’t Have on Payroll

 

photo: courtesy of http://www.ballsports.com.au

I had quite a few ideas for this weekend’s post, none of which was this. I thought this piece was equally pressing and worth sharing…  So here it is 🙂

An Organization wouldn’t be a ‘going concern’ without the individuals who help chart its course and help it achieve sustainable profitability. It is however safe to say that many organizations may be holding on to ‘excess weight’. By excess weight, I refer to individuals who consistently deplete resources and erode their respective corporate brands -employees who take away, rather than add value to the organization.

The first category would have to be ‘the actively disengaged employees’. These individuals for one reason or another are unable to buy into the culture of the organization. Even worse, they tend to talk badly about the firm (internally and externally) and may even take it a step further by deliberately sabotaging systems, processes and/or individuals who seem to be making positive impact. Organizations risk their goodwill, their profit margin and their continued existence if this category of employees remain tolerated .

The next group of employees who shouldn’t on the payroll are ‘the dishonest employees’. Integrity remains big, even in this age of what may be termed a liberal/accepting culture. One reason why these individuals shouldn’t be tolerated is quite basic: they are capable of bringing down the organization much faster than a recession would. Furthermore, harbouring employees with questionable integrity sends a wrong message across the organization which ultimately encourages a spread of the menace.

My third category features the ‘consistently underperforming employees’. I’m a firm believer in employee empowerment. I also believe in reshuffling staff (job rotation) because several reasons could account for why an employee may be slacking on the job. One reason may be pressures from the employee’s private live. Another could be the job type (poor profiling and consequently, a mismatch). Alternatively, it could even be team/line-manager induced. Humans are predominantly reactive and would respond to stimulus in different ways, sometimes in ways another may find hard to comprehend. However, when all avenues have been explored to get an employee to deliver on outcomes, it may be best to issue a ‘red card’.

Implementing the above might be easier said than done, especially when sentiments are involved. However, when viewed from a wider perspective, that is, the possible implication on general staff morale – this ought to be given careful consideration. In the long-term it would only hurt the business, in terms of its image/brand perception and eventually profitability.

While HR has a huge role to play in all of this, it is however not a task for HR alone. It calls for collective effort geared towards protecting the interest of the business and ultimately all stakeholders. The truth it, if we jointly (and I use this term loosely) aid and abet the above practices in our respective teams; sooner rather than later, we would probably have no jobs to go to 🙂