BRYANT FUKUTOMI / BFUKUTOMI@STARBULLETIN.COM

Employees who do their best
are offended when slackers
are allowed to slide

AS I WAS PREPARING our outdoor grill to barbecue some chicken wings recently, I found myself having to stop every few seconds to swat yet another mosquito who was seeking to feed upon me. In addition to this being an irritant, I was also a bit confused.

I'd purposefully put our grill under our carport, far away from the foliage in our backyard where these pesky critters lived, to avoid exactly this problem. A little nosing around the area uncovered the cause: A garbage can lid had been left open-side up and gathered a pool of stagnate water. A nirvana for all the mosquitoes in my backyard had become a hell for me.

A recent study conducted by the Watson Wyatt Worldwide Consulting Group strongly suggests a comparable situation is brewing with respect to employee performance appraisal and incentive programs.

For some employees, these systems are a nirvana, motivating them to proactively seek places and opportunities to sink their teeth into important organizational problems.

They remain loyal, often shunning opportunities to fly off to what may appear to better opportunities. And, when they buzz with excitement to their friends, they are actually helping the organization recruit fresh new blood as eager and motivated as they are themselves.

So what, if you'll pardon the pun, is the fly in the ointment, you wonder?

The key lies in the word "some." The organization's high performers appreciate what these systems do for them, claiming they improve performance reviews and pay decisions.

What "bugs" them are that the daily routines of the organization's poorer performers are not affected.

The poorer performers are allowed to stagnate and subsequently breed discontent among others who are trying to improve.

In other words, while star performers -- the ones who are invariably enthusiastically buzzing around -- are often praised, their poorer performing colleagues -- the ones who are invariably laying low to attract minimal attention -- are seldom, if ever, confronted.

A combination, these star performers note, of goals that are often and non-specific, and feedback that is seldom direct and honest, is debilitating.

I am not suggesting that attention paid to star performers be at all reduced. Rather, I am emphasizing the need to take steps to lighten the load being carried by star performers because there are un-addressed situations of employees who are not carrying their fair share.

Employees who are permitted to not pull their own weight, to stagnate and not improve will -- like a mosquito -- suck needed blood from others.

Most encouraging about the Watson Wyatt Worldwide Consulting Group study results was the extent to which employees were eager for companies to revamp their accountability standard and systems in order to further motivate the high performers, and at the same time address the poorer performers.

Employee performance systems that support organizational excellence sit on three legs of a stool:

Not confronting poor performers does not make the problem go away. Quite the opposite. Such avoidance will, invariably, sap the spirit from even the most motivated employees.

TAKE A GOOD HARD LOOK at your employee performance and incentive systems. Do they remind you of the flowing and regenerative Red Sea? Are they supporting and growing an organization full of mostly live coral and active beautiful fish?

Or do they remind you of the stagnant Dead Sea? Are they supporting and harboring an organization full of mostly crusty old salt and deep mud?

Have your performance appraisal and incentive systems become more of an exercise in bureaucratic minutia.

Have they, in the words of an anonymous observer, become like "any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy -- indistinguishable from molasses?"