Friday, July 16, 2010
Theory of Employment - Larry Winget meets Selden/Colvin Angel Customers
I have been expanding a theory by the authors Winget, Selden and Colvin related to staffing and managing employees I thought you may be interested in.
In any company you have 20% of the worker who are great, 20% who are bad and 60% in the middle.
The Top 20%
These are workers you don't even have to manage. Just stay out of their way and try to make them happy. The top 20% probably do 50% of the work that gets done in a company. Unless you company is growing at a fast rate you will not be able to keep the top 20% long term as they are on such a fast track to success that they will eventually out grow the company.
The Middle 60%
These are worker who are average in every way. These are the workers who need the bulk of a managers time in training, review and mentoring to either motivate them into improve into the top 20% or show that they are actually a bottom 20% performer and should be replaced. The middle 60% contributes about 60% of the workload.
The Bottom 20%
These are the worker where most managers spend the bulk of their time. It is a waste for both you and the worker as you need to be focusing on getting the most out of your productive employees and not babysitting these jokers. The bottom 20% of workers should be put on notice and fired unless they move into one of the higher categories in a short time. They may be nice people, but they are not doing their fair amount of work. The bottom 20% probably contributes -10% of the workload as their errors and lack of diligence cause more work for the other two categories.
So that is the basics of the theory. My contention is that if a company does not fire the bottom 20% of employees and it is true that the top 20% leave then eventually you will end up with 50% or more of the employees in the bottom 20% of performance. I believe that unproductive workers, much like unproductive customers actually do negative work as they cause problems for the rest of your workers.
In any company you have 20% of the worker who are great, 20% who are bad and 60% in the middle.
The Top 20%
These are workers you don't even have to manage. Just stay out of their way and try to make them happy. The top 20% probably do 50% of the work that gets done in a company. Unless you company is growing at a fast rate you will not be able to keep the top 20% long term as they are on such a fast track to success that they will eventually out grow the company.
The Middle 60%
These are worker who are average in every way. These are the workers who need the bulk of a managers time in training, review and mentoring to either motivate them into improve into the top 20% or show that they are actually a bottom 20% performer and should be replaced. The middle 60% contributes about 60% of the workload.
The Bottom 20%
These are the worker where most managers spend the bulk of their time. It is a waste for both you and the worker as you need to be focusing on getting the most out of your productive employees and not babysitting these jokers. The bottom 20% of workers should be put on notice and fired unless they move into one of the higher categories in a short time. They may be nice people, but they are not doing their fair amount of work. The bottom 20% probably contributes -10% of the workload as their errors and lack of diligence cause more work for the other two categories.
So that is the basics of the theory. My contention is that if a company does not fire the bottom 20% of employees and it is true that the top 20% leave then eventually you will end up with 50% or more of the employees in the bottom 20% of performance. I believe that unproductive workers, much like unproductive customers actually do negative work as they cause problems for the rest of your workers.
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