Dealing with non-performers

Abstract

Purpose

Non-performance should be addressed urgently given the high associated costs: on average, 17 percent of management time is spent overseeing non-performing employees, thus distracting managers from important business issues and initiatives and, non-performers can reduce productivity by as much as 30–40 percent. Though many organizations recognize the importance of dealing effectively with non-performers, this remains difficult in practice for various reasons, including cultural aspects. The purpose of this paper is to answer the following question: What are some of the ways for managers in different national cultures to deal effectively with non-performers?

Design/methodology/approach

To collect the necessary data, semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers of profit and non-profit companies in different countries. After the interviews were transcribed, key themes and patterns were identified by manual open coding. The collected data were disaggregated into conceptual units and provided with labels. After significant themes and issues were identified, axial coding was used to look for relationships between the data categories that had emerged from open coding.

Findings

There are two main culture-independent findings. First, clarity is needed when managers give assignments to and set expectations for employees. Thereafter, managers should monitor employee performance and give immediate feedback when employees make mistakes. Second, this feedback needs to take the form of true two-way dialogue between the manager and employees: the manager needs to listen to employees’ situation and what they want and need as development opportunities to progress. These findings in itself are not earth-shattering but still important for two reasons: the findings are culture-independent and can thus be seen as generic approaches for dealing with non-performers in many (most) cultural settings; and in practice the authors still see many managers ignoring these activities while dealing with non-performers, making them less effective than they could and should be. In this respect, the findings serve as a reminder not only of the fact that these activities still are the most effective in order to deal with non-performers, but also point out how important they are as they are effective in many cultural settings.

Practical implications

In practical terms, the results should assist managers in various cultural settings to determine if there are non-performers in their organizations, identify the causes of their non-performance and apply interventions to effectively tackle the issue.

Originality/value

The research contributes to the literature by examining topics such as how to define non-performers, how they can be recognized from their behavior, what causes their non-performance and how national cultures influence the management of non-performers.

Citation

van Dijk, E. and de Waal, A. (2020), "Dealing with non-performers", Journal of Strategy and Management, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 111-127. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSMA-07-2019-0127