"Bosses keen to CULL low performing staff"

That's the headline in an article from Management Issues.com

It turns out, when you read the article that the word "CULL" is actually something that was 'borrowed' from a comment by Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO) that he culls one in every fifteen of his company's employees.

A former head of General Electric is reputed to have said that "if you've got 16 employees, at least two are turkeys."

I was little disturbed that the views of at least two of the most senior and highly paid executives in the world is associated with thinking of their staff as some form of animal or poultry.

What is being referred to is not to "cull" people in the same way that a herd or a flock may be culled, but to simply fire them if they are under performing.

I have to admit to having some mixed views about this idea.

On the one hand I accept fully that getting rid of under performing employees is in everyone's interests.

A long association with industrial relations would suggest that unless this is underpinned by due process and a fair and equitable system by means of which people are identified as under performers and given at least one chance to improve their performance it should not happen.

Without implying any possible malicious motive to any manager, let's just say that the power imbalance between employers and employees is such that abuse can and probably does happen.

With all that aside I wonder whether those who teach organisational practice could consider adding into their text books some reference to the fact that employees are fellow human beings and NOT lower forms of life.

While the comments may well have been made as a colloquial reference it does make you wonder whether the changes to industrial laws in this country recently emanate from a view that workers are like animals.

If that attitude by senior executives is not changed it could spell some troubled times ahead for the world.