Employers generally make one of two mistakes when firing someone – they either do it too quickly or too slowly. Too quickly happens when they terminate an employee who might have been salvageable with a little time and good management practices. Instead of spending a little money to rehabilitate, they often decide to start over.
On the flip side, too slowly sometimes happens when an owner or manager has the illusion that a problem employee is indispensable. This is usually rooted in one of the following three views held by the owner or manager.
- They know that he/she will be inconvenienced by addressing the problem and are willing to tolerate the behavior in order to avoid conflict.
- They are worried about the problem employee’s relationship with a key client.
- They overvalue the problem employee’s individual production but do not consider how this employee limits the productivity of the rest of the team.
The Davidson Group once helped a CEO who needed to make a personnel change in a critical, non-executive role. We did a number of activities to find a replacement. We reminded the CEO of The Lottery Principle.
The Lottery Principle teaches us that if an employee wins the lottery tonight and flies to Key West tomorrow, the organization will find a way to work through the unplanned loss, no matter the employee’s role. If that is true, then why do so many organizations feel powerless to act on poor performance?
How do you know when the time has come to fire a poor performer? It is time when you can clearly define what the performance deficiencies are, you have communicated your expectations to the employee and have determined that the employee is either unable or unwilling to meet those expectations. At that point, it is time to sever the relationship and deal with the ramifications. Just as you would if that employee won the lottery and disappeared to a Caribbean island.
Contact the Davidson Group for guidance on firing non-performing employees.
