Employers need to do more to help their managers motivate poorer-performing staff, according to research by consultants Watson Wyatt.

"Managers find it easy to manage top-performing employees but are not so adept when it comes to improving poorer performers," says Carole Hathaway, a senior consultant at Watson Wyatt. "Some of the greatest opportunities for improved organisational performance lie in helping managers raise the bar for moderate and poorer performers but it appears from our study that few employers are doing a good job of this."

In its 2007/2008 global strategic rewards study, Watson Wyatt found that only a third of poor performers said their immediate manager does a good job of communicating expectations for organisational financial performance, of establishing goals for their individual performance that are linked to business objectives, or of providing direct feedback on their individual performance.

However, a top performer was 66% more likely to say that their immediate supervisor does a good job of communicating organisational and performance management issues than a poor performer would, the survey found.