Outing the undeserving highfliers

By Will Smale
BBC News business reporter

Mr McKevitt says The Apprentice is all about slackers being found out

In every office or workplace there is usually at least one - the slacker, the lazy so-and-so, the man forever surfing the net, the woman constantly emailing her mates.

Whatever you wish to call them, the work-shy are seemingly everywhere.

And most people seem to agree - a recent survey by the Investors in People award scheme found that 75% of the UK's workforce think some of their colleagues are not pulling their weight.

Worse still, a great many of the slackers appear to be doing very well for themselves.

Whether through charm, luck, supreme confidence or - as likely - barefaced subterfuge, they have somehow managed to win promotions and rise up through the management ranks.

Their former colleagues may be left aghast, but the senior bosses think the slacker in question is "the best man for the job", "going places" or "a person you can trust".

If a company is successful, then everyone dives on their share of that success, but if something is a failure no-one owns up, it is always someone else's fault Steve McKevitt

That is at least the opinion of Steve McKevitt, a public relations expert who has just written a book on the subject called City Slackers, based on his own experiences in a number of industries, and interviews with friends and former colleagues.

Talking-the-talk

Taking a humorous look at the problem, Mr McKevitt wants directors to better open their eyes and do something about their rogue highfliers.

"In this celebrity obsessed day and age, more and more people want the trappings of fame, but don't want to work for it," says the 39-year-old head of Sheffield-based communications consultancy MK.

Would some bosses admit they are out of their depth?

"It's the same in the business world - you have people who want, or think, they deserve to be promoted, despite not actually doing any work."

"They are the people who are good at talking the game, but not actually doing it.

"I think that is the main reason why The Apprentice TV show [currently being shown on BBC2] is so successful - viewers want to see if the entrants that just talk the talk will be found out."

Responsibility

Mr McKevitt adds that the problem of high-flying office slackers has grown in the UK as the country's manufacturing base has declined.

With more and more people working in service sector, in jobs or industries that do not produce a physical product, it is easier for people to get away with doing as little as possible at the same time as appearing impressive, he says.

"If a company is successful, then everyone dives on their share of that success, but if something is a failure no-one owns up, it is always someone else's fault," says Mr McKevitt.

"Senior managers have got to work harder to know exactly what individual staff are responsible for, because if they don't, they cannot possible measure their performance."

Carrots

Russell Lawson from the Federation of Small Businesses says high-flying slackers are more of a problem in big business.

"In a smaller firm it is much more difficult to get away with being lazy as you will be spotted straight away," he says.

"In a larger organisation with big departments and thousands of people, it is much easier to blend into the background and appear to be hardworking when you are not."

Yet Mr Lawson says senior managers cannot stop the problem just with sticks - they need to offer carrots as well.

"It's not just about clamping down on the lazy, managers need to do more to inspire people to take more interest in what they do to prevent slackers in the first place," he says.

"You need to recreate the stimulation to keep people fresh at whatever level in the company."

Mr McKevitt concludes that senior managers have to take the problem of highflying slackers seriously, "otherwise some staff will continue to get away with murder, and others in the office will quite rightly be very annoyed about it".