Mediocrity drift: Difference between revisions

A curious, unintended, negative feedback loop of lazy [[human capital management]]. If you don’t proactively ''retain'' good staff, and if you don’t actively manage out poor staff — if you manage by tactical hiring and “natural attrition” — the general quality of your staff ''relative to their cost'' will ''decline''.

Let’s say firms, when presented with broadly equivalent candidates, prioritise those of a type it doesn’t have when [[lateral hire|hiring]], and those of which it has too many when selecting candidates for a [[RIF]]. For those who value ''cognitive'' [[diversity]], let alone ''cultural'' diversity, stands to reason.

Since one tends to hire one golden strand at a time, but reduce the workforce in large hanks, this creates an odd system effect, predicated on three general assumptions:  

*Staff with [[lateral quitter|the gumption to leave]] tend to be ''relatively'' good employees.

*Conversely: those who aren’t much chop — who are already overpaid for what they do — are tend not to quit, because they are onto a good thing, would need to find an even more gullible employer to hire them: consequently they will only leave if you make them, by performance management or through a [[RIF]].

*That all personnel, however you categorise them, are evenly distributed relative to the [[cost-value threshold]], and that any given subgroup, however classified (except by reference to pure value) will be about as good as any other.