The High Price Of Underperforming Employees: Have The Conversation

BusinessThe High Price Of Underperforming Employees: Have The ConversationByPeter D. Banko,Forbes Books Author.for Forbes BooksAUTHOR POSTExpertise and opinions of authors published by ForbesBooks. Imprint operated under license. | Paid ProgramMay 19, 2026, 03:19pm EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.Underperformance and misalignment don’t just hurt the bottom line; they risk losing high-performers. gettyHarvey Mackay, author of Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, said something that is perhaps ever truer today as it was then. "It isn't the people you fire who make your life miserable. It's the people you don't." If you have an underperforming employee (or more), you can’t afford to wait to have a conversation with them, a serious one. Researchers from CultureAmp standardized the rating scales of 741 companies and over 200,000 employees. Employees who were defined and rated by their managers and peers as being in that organization’s bottom performance bucket made up the “under performers” group. Depending on the organization, underperforming employees typically make up between 0 and 20 percent of the workforce. The average is 4 percent. Employees working remotely create even more problems because those problems and the causes can take more time to spot, and time has a price tag on it. We in managerial positions have a widespread shortage of qualified team members. Retention is crucial. Pruning out the non-performers is equally important to the future of your company. No one wants to fire an employee; I don’t want to fire an employee, but now more than ever, we have to fight to keep the performers on our team. Underperforming TypesPraveen Andapalli, Forbes Councils Member and CEO of Vitel Global Communications and Varun Digital Media, points out that there are two types of underperforming employees. One type has performed well since being on-boar...