Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch might have a solution for that poor performer sitting next to you at work.

You know the kind. They spend an inordinate amount of time surfing the Web, browsing on eBay or staring blankly at the computer screen. They spend hours on a task that should take minutes. Or they're cranky, obnoxious, angry.

Their ineptitude likely means that you end up scrambling to finish your work — and theirs.

So what does Welch — whose decisive management style was often celebrated during his leadership of GE — do with such drains on the workplace?

Welch would grade certain workers, such as managers, on several metrics, and cut the bottom 10 percent. His philosophy: Move up the top 20 percent, nurture the middle 70 percent, and cut the rest.

But before you gleefully skip to the low performer's desk, pink slip in hand, several experts caution that managers should at least try to turn the worker into a producer.

Maybe give the person better-defined goals, or more training. But if the worker just suffers from a bad attitude, "you might not be able to change that," said Mark Murphy, chief executive of Washington, D.C.-based Leadership IQ.

"A lot of things that created that bad attitude occurred when the person was zero to 18 years of age," Murphy said. "You can change skills through training, but not attitude."

Whatever the worker's issues, moves must be made. Yes, firing is an option.

The real problem is that the low performer might be pushing your good workers out the door. Eighty-seven percent of workers in a Leadership IQ survey said just that: Low performers made them want to change jobs. Ninety-three percent also said low performers decrease their own productivity.

Consider this: When the boss has a big project that needs doing, he or she's going to give it to any worker other than the low performer.

"The low performers get the wonderful, easy jobs and the high performers end up burning out," Murphy said. "The high performers get sick of having to pick up the slack for the low performers or deal with the drama or emotional turmoil they tend to stir up."

Josh Bouk, in his 10 years in local leadership jobs, has had to manage several low performers. His advice?

"The first thing you need to understand is why they're low performers," said Bouk, vice president of e-learning solutions at Netsmartz.

Bouk recalled a group of software engineers he once managed that included one difficult person who would complain, undercut morale and put others down.

After probing by Bouk, the worker said he was dealing with issues at home and felt unchallenged professionally.

So Bouk gave the person more challenging tasks — but only after the basic work was finished.

"His workload turned around quite a bit. Unfortunately, the home issues led to him leaving the company and area."

At another time, one of Bouk's project managers let his emotions interfere with his work, once hanging up, for example, on a demanding client.

When Bouk figured out the issue, the worker — who was in his late 20s — was given training on how to deal with difficult requests.

"I have mixed feelings about (Welch's) approach," Murphy said. "The organization has to be ready for it to work. What if a manager builds a department truly stacked with a bunch of 'A' players? Another department might be filled with 'C' players. The one-size-fits-all approach can miss a lot."