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This is where having frequent formal feedback sessions and also documenting the discussions will come very handy. Once you have that in place then everything else would be a simple task. That would make these non-performing gossip-mongers to take a back seat.
Today, unfortunately the scenario is that, these people who are well aware of the weaknesses of the system and, more than that, well aware of the weaknesses of their respective managers take the organizations that they work in for a solid ride. This scenario can only change if we are geared up to handle them in the right way ensuring that they also get back to the right back and at the same time not affect the others in the organization.

We have to Overcome the 'Unwanted Fear'

Somehow the evil called 'fear of attrition' has crept into several organizations. Most of the managers are tending to forget the philosophy that 'nobody is indispensable'. They are willing to go out of their way to retain employees. I am not against retention. We need strong retention measures to retain the best of our talent and that is the only way we can win the 'war for talent'. But we need to understand that it is important to retain only our best performers, our best talent and our critical resources. If non-performers and average performers want to leave, it is better to accept it. Their confidence is that the job market is very good and they can easily find a job for themselves. The same holds good for companies as well. There are enough and more of good profiles floating in the market; we just need to pick them up.

I had always suggested to all organizations I had worked with that 10% attrition is always a healthy situation. It is good to have some fresh blood flowing to the system every year. It is really a pathetic scenario which is arising today that most of the non-performers and average performers use fear of attrition as an effective weapon against management and get away with what they want. We are not only making a mistake of encouraging these undeserving people but at the same time we are also highly de-motivating our performers.

The biggest mistake that most of us are committing today is not taking stringent actions against these non-performers who, in turn, become problem creators. As I said earlier, we are penalizing them by not rewarding them. And on top of it, sometimes we do not get direct in explaining them as to why they were rated low than the others. Hence, they get into a feeling that they are the best but they were not recognized for unknown reasons. This drives them to cause unwanted problems in the team, in turn, disturbing the performers to a great extent. Is it not the responsibility of managers and HR to create a peaceful work environment for the performers? They are so focused on their work and they will never have time to keep a check on 'political' issues happening around them. Finally, they would fall prey for this 'politics' and will decide to move on.

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Dr. Dineshkumar Murugesan is currently working as Manager, U.S. Human Resources in a professional services firm at Hyderabad. He leads the HR Operations and the Resource Management Teams of the Talent Support Centre. He has almost 12 years of HR experience. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science Engineering and a Master’s in Human Resource Management.
This article expresses his own personal views and does not represent his current or any previous organizations' views.