A recent study points to the importance of having an effective human resource system in place if business owners want to grow.
According to the staffing firm Robert Half International, it's estimated that the average business executive spends nearly 20 percent of their working day devoted to overseeing employees who are underperforming. This translates to approximately one working day per week.
The respondents, most of whom served as the chief financial officers of their companies, were also asked to what extent they thought poor hiring practices had an impact on workplace morale. Eighty five percent of business executives said that it affected morale "greatly" or "somewhat."
Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of Robert Half International, said these types of issues take the company away from accomplishing the goals needed to make a company flourish.
"Underperforming employees … require significant attention from employers, distracting managers from business-critical initiatives and causing other team members to pick up the slack," said Messmer. "Bad personnel decisions rarely happen by chance. In retrospect, managers usually discover they failed to give proper attention to the hiring process."
Occasionally, however, workers whose work productivity is less than stellar may be a function of their not being familiar with the company's HR compliance statutes. Business executives may want to elucidate what the rules and requirements that govern employees are so that underperformance can be counteracted effectively.
