I received a call last week from a woman that I have never met. She was an employer who wanted to ask me some questions about firing an employee who is “making my life a living hell”. I asked her to explain why she believed the person was an underperforming employee. She replied, “She is doing nothing towards her job and everything to make everyone else’s job harder.”
“Can you give me an example?” I asked.
“I sure can,” she said. “She called a long-term vendor of mine and cancelled an order that we had placed. This order was instrumental in getting a project done for our top client. Luckily, I have a fantastic relationship with this vendor, who called me personally to make sure that the order should be cancelled. This is not the first time, nor is it the first incident. In addition, she shows up late, none of her work is done on time, and her attitude is turning away new clients.”
“How long has this been going on?” I asked.
“5 years,” she replied. I gasped. Why on earth did this woman put up with an unacceptable employee for as long as she did?
There are a few reasons an employer will keep a poor employee in place:
1) The employee was not performing unsatisfactorily for the whole 5 years, just part of it. The employer creates a false sense of “it will get better over time.”
2) You have a conversation with an underperforming employee and it gets better for a short time. Then a new erosion of performance begins. The employer begins to believe this is just a cycle of behavior to justify.
3) The employer thinks that they cannot have the position be empty while they hire someone else. And since many do not like the hiring process, they delay the search.
4) They feel bad for firing someone.
Here is what I told her, “I greatly appreciate that you want to provide a good working environment for your employees, and I understand that you feel bad. I have never in the 16 years that I have been doing this had a client tell me that they regretted firing an employee. NOT ONE. I have had clients regret hiring someone and regret not firing them sooner, but I have never in my career had a client regret firing an employee.”
If it has crossed your mind that you need to fire an employee, begin to truly examine the situation. If you determine the employee is no longer a fit, follow a consistent firing policy, including documentation and explaining severity of your dissatisfaction to the employee. And, don’t wait. You are just putting off the inevitable. As they say in business, hire slow, fire fast.