Several companies are investing in the performance of a small group of employees they label their high achievers to save time and cost, according to findings from leading global specialist recruiting group Hays.

"We have seen a great deal of investment in talent management by organizations since performance management was introduced in the 1970s, but the model of focusing on a small group of employees has stayed pretty much the norm," said Simon Lance, regional director of Hays in China.

Hays examined the traditional model of performance management and found five dangers that an organization might deal with if they use the original model. The first one is the difficulty of defining "top performance".