dead wood

The common objection to seniority pay is, “It’s rewarding dead wood!” My response is, “Why do you hire dead wood? Or why do you hire live wood and kill it?”

Peter Scholtes, The Leader’s Handbook, page 331. Peter worked with Dr. Deming and presented at the 2 day Deming seminars with Dr. Deming.

dead wood 

Pronunciation:

NOUN

[MASS NOUN]

1Parts of a tree or branch which are dead.

Example sentences

1.1People or things that are no longer useful or productive:a lot of the company’s dead wood was removed by voluntary redundancy