Colleague A
Reports in often; speaks well in meetings.
Last 8 weeks: 2 records, all routine deliveries.
HomeVITALIS™Why a System?
How much of your people management runs on memory?
Memory fades. Impressions tilt. Conversations turn into debates: you remember it one way, they remember it another. How much time and energy goes into working around memory and bias?
People issues usually start small. What does it cost when they are left to grow?
First, a question
As a leader of people, which of these costs you the most time and energy?
Pick one, then see how 500 managers answered.
These are the survey’s top 7 items; all 11 are listed below the results. Your choice isn’t recorded.
Ciphr · 500 UK managers with people management responsibilities · 2026
In the survey, what troubles managers most is mostly about people.
They were asked which parts of managing are most challenging (several answers allowed). Three of the top four are about handling people.
- Having ‘difficult’ conversations32%
- Increased stress30%
- Managing grievances, disciplinary procedures, dismissals or redundancies25%
- Managing challenging or problematic behavior within the team24%
- 0%
People issuesOtherEach item counted separately; managers could choose several
Source: Ciphr (a UK HR and payroll software provider), press release, September 30, 2026. Online survey of 500 UK managers with people management responsibilities, run on Pollfish from August 26 to September 8, 2026.
About the survey
What the survey reported
Ciphr asked these 500 managers which parts of managing are most challenging. All 11 items, in Ciphr’s wording: having ‘difficult’ conversations 32%; increased stress 30%; managing grievances, disciplinary procedures, dismissals or redundancies 25%; managing challenging or problematic behavior within their team 24%; more meetings 21%; extra admin and workload 21%; enforcing policies, rules, ways of working or business decisions that they don’t agree with 20%; managing unrealistic expectations from their boss or leadership 19%; absence management 19%; being a mediator / dealing with interpersonal friction or conflict 18%; giving and receiving critical feedback 18%.
How to read these percentages
Managers could choose several items, so each percentage is calculated on its own. Adding items together does not tell you how many managers.
Source and limits
Ciphr is an HR and payroll software company; the results come from its press release. The sample is UK managers.
Two barriers for managers
Fuzzy memory and first impressions: what can you do about them?
AERTHEIX’s viewThe top items are often stages of the same thing: a conversation that wasn’t clear, then discipline or dismissal when it wasn’t resolved, with the team affected along the way. What sits behind these “people problems”? Try sorting them yourself:
Where do these people problems really belong?Try matching them.
Drag a phrase into a category below (on a phone, press and hold first), or tap a phrase and then a category.
People’s behavior has many causes. Telling them apart takes a more systematic, structured method.
AnswerVITALIS turns the vague, easily disputed moments into a systematic record.
AnswerVITALIS separates three questions, so you can see where the problem really sits.
01Blind spot
When a hire doesn’t work out, attitude usually gets the blame.
Hiring managers say most unsuccessful new hires fall short on attitude. Yet don’t interviews and reviews spend most of their time on skills?
Your ideal employee is:
Skills can be taught, attitude can’t? Many managers think so. But what is “bad attitude,” exactly: not changing after being taught, or not holding up under pressure?
People who want to learn can build skills over time. But how do you know they are really improving, and not just looking busy?
Of course. The question is: can you write down a standard for “good attitude”? Can you see it in an interview?
So what does a good work attitude look like?
VITALIS breaks “attitude” into two questions you can see at work:
- YCan they learn it? How fast teaching and feedback become a new way of working.
- ZWill it hold? Whether the standard holds with no one watching and under pressure.
Skills leave a record you can check. These two usually live only in conversations.
Leadership IQ · new hires · three-year study
- 46%
- of new hires were judged unsuccessful by their hiring managers within 18 months
- 89%
- of unsuccessful cases were put down by hiring managers to attitude-related factors; only 11% to technical skills
Source: Leadership IQ, Hiring for Attitude. The reasons were given by the hiring managers.
About the study
What the study reported
In a three-year Leadership IQ study, hiring managers judged 46% of new hires to have failed within 18 months. Of these failures, hiring managers attributed 89% to attitude-related factors (including coachability, emotional intelligence, motivation and temperament) and 11% to technical skills.
How it applies
The link between this figure and this page is less direct than the headline suggests. Companies already value factors beyond skills, but those factors rarely get what skills get: record requirements, written standards and regular review. They may matter a great deal; they are simply seldom recorded.
Source
Leadership IQ, Hiring for Attitude: a three-year consultancy study tracking more than 20,000 new hires at 312 companies. It is a consulting firm’s commercial research, and the results were reported by hiring managers.
02Cost
On impression alone“It’s just one underperformer.”
Long before anyone leaves, the team and the company are already paying.
An underperforming employee slows down colleagues who are doing well. Managing them takes extra time, often a lot more. When the work doesn’t get done, someone else, often the manager, finishes it. The direct manager feels it first. Here is what the surveys show.
Borrowed estimates · the cost of no record
- 17%
- Estimated share of a manager’s time spent supervising underperforming employees
- ≈320hours
- From one manager’s working year: an illustrative conversion, about eight working weeksillustrative conversion
- 50%+
- Replacing a wrong hire is estimated to cost 50% or more of the role’s annual salary (the low end of Gallup’s estimated range)
About 8 working weeksAbout 47 working weeks a year
If nothing changes, the cost builds up like this:
- Right awayManager’s timeThe same conversation repeats; reviews are rebuilt from memory.
- NextTeam’s loadColleagues quietly absorb the work; training gets booked before anyone knows whether it is a skills, workload or environment problem.
- At review timeDecision qualityThe probation review arrives, the file is thin, and the decision rests on impressions.
- FinallyReplacementIf someone does have to be replaced, that is the last cost to appear, not the first.
Three things cycle again and again: manager’s time, team’s load, decision quality. Only after several rounds does it end in replacement. When the new hire arrives, there is no record to hand over, and it all starts again.
How it’s calculated
1,880 hours×17%≈320 hours÷40 hours a week≈8 working weeks
If the employee eventually leaves, Gallup estimates replacement can cost between half and twice their annual salary. Actual cost varies by role, market and method.
Source: Robert Half (2012): US CFOs surveyed estimated that managers spend an average of 17% of their time supervising poorly performing employees. ≈320 hours and 47 working weeks are AERTHEIX’s illustrative conversion, using 1,880 working hours a year and 40 hours a week. Gallup (2019) describes half to twice annual salary as a conservative replacement-cost range.
03The other side of the cost
The most memorable person isn’t always the biggest contributor.
People who report in often and are easy to be around get remembered; people who quietly get on with the work get overlooked. That is no one’s fault; it is how impressions work. Managing more fairly and more effectively takes a written standard that is the same for everyone, so each person’s strengths are visible.
That way, people who need support get it, and people who are ready get the opportunity.
Colleague B
Quiet; rarely comes to you.
Last 8 weeks: 7 records, 3 of them stepping in when colleagues couldn’t cover.
By impression: A looks stronger than B.
Impressions remember who was most visible. Records show who did what.
Illustrative
For the full picture, ability alone isn’t enough. See how VITALIS looks at three questions separately →
04Compare
Your current approach, side by side.
The three approaches answer different questions. The difference is not who is right; it is where the information comes from, when it is recorded, and how it is used afterward.
| Compared | Annual review from memory | Questionnaire tools | VITALIS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where the information comes from | The manager’s recollection | Questionnaires filled in by the person or others | Specific examples the manager sees at work |
| When it’s recorded | Just before the review | At one point in time | When it happens |
| What you get | One overall rating | A description of traits or tendencies | Three separate observations, each tied to specific examples |
| What happens next | Discussed again next year | Interpreted by HR or a coach | The same manager follows up and looks again in a few weeks |
Trait inventories usually assess relatively stable characteristics, mostly by questionnaire at one point in time. VITALIS repeatedly records what is observed at work. This is a general comparison; individual companies and tools vary.
Next
You’ve seen the common problems and what they cost.
Here is where to go from here.
How it worksHow VITALIS helps you understand and manage people issuesThree questions kept apart, written standards, every record dated and tied to an example.
BenefitsWhat you can do with it9-box discussions, assigning work, following up on change.
Start hereT0 FoundationOne day to learn to see the cause, record the facts and agree the next step. Opens in the first half of 2027.