Posted on 02/14/2015 4:03:10 PM PST by rickmichaels
I hate firing people. I do it if I have to, but it’s a last resort. It means I made a mistake in my hiring and screwed up.
Document, document document. HR should insist that supervisors document bad AND exceptionally good behavior. It is not HR’s responsibility to fire. That belongs to the boss or the supervisor.
I was simply addressing the notion that somehow a business owner can be coerced into keeping an employee that is bad, or no longer needed.
The right of an employer to fire an employee is absolute, except when a formal contract exists. In that case, I would imagine that such contracts usually contain provisions specifying under what circumstances the contract can be terminated by the employer.
Those of us who live in Southern and Midwestern states find these odd concepts of a "guaranteed job" to be rather alien, and in direct conflict with true Freedom of choice and association.
It's simply preposterous to me that an employer wouldn't have the right to terminate any employee. And the employer shouldn't be required to manufacture some phony reason for doing so.
Here in Florida, as I have mentioned, an employee can be released for any reason, or no reason.
No employer owes me a job, even if the job I'm doing is exemplary. If one desires job security, then a contract should be signed.
I always tell people that I promote into management, “Management is lonely. The people who used to be your friends at work cannot be anymore. You can be friendly, but you shouldn’t be buddies. You may have to fire them one day. You can’t play favorites. Stop having casual lunches with certain employees every day. Don’t hang out on the weekends. Your world is about to shrink. Get used to it.”
The “document, document, document” part always drives me nuts. HR actually makes it harder for me to do the right thing. I’ll know when an employee is bad. When I start the documentation process, I also know that employee will start a whisper campaign to undermine me, the company, and their peers.
Sometimes you just need to cut through the BS and show them the door quickly to avoid the toxicity that comes with “process.”
Large companies that use the Welch method typically offer generous severance pay. In order to receive this pay, you have to sign an agreement not to sue. Nearly everyone does sign.
This makes it doubly stupid, because you’re forking out substantial money to get your ‘low performers’ to leave, without a guarantee that their placements will be any better.
Ping
Never hire a protected class person. It will cost you to get rid of them. It is also a good idea to fire liberals when they rear their heads. They have no interest in making your business succeed.
TI eliminated the ten tier ranking, where they’d then periodically eliminate the bottom tier, the bottom 10%. It caused people to undercut each other and unwilling to work together on projects when it didn’t help their ranking.
OTOH, there ARE bosses out there who live down to the negative stereotype of boss-as-bastard. IMO, we should be able to get rid of them too!
Resurrect Patton and make him Speaker of the House!
Amen about ‘protected’ classes of employees. In the last three years, we have had to fire two employees that fell under that description. For each one, it took over six months of documentation, warnings, and write-ups, all while keeping up the work my position entailed. These persons were given every opportunity to ‘straighten up and fly right’, but chose not to do so. In the end, management appeared to be heartless and cruel for forcing them out of their positions. What other employees failed to understand is these two former employees were responsible for what transpired, management only signed the paperwork. Rant over...carry on.
Very true. And most of them know very little about the jobs that they are suppose to be managing.
The two worse bosses I ever had were both salesmen. They were good at selling. They knew less then nothing about all the other aspects of doing business.
I take a different view, but I am thinking more about external people you might hire as a consultant or accountant or attorney. Legal considerations aside (and they can be horrible in the case of employees and the fear of lawsuit is entirely credible) when you as an employer tolerate sub-par performance from an employee; and EVEN MORE from a professional you have hired; You are saying to yourself at some level “I am not worth it”. You (if you are founder/builder/owner) are saying “This thing I built (and screw 0bama) isn’t really all that great, it’s only average, maybe not even average. It doesn’t need nor merit sharp people. And I am not confident in my ability to locate more motivated and better performing people. I suck”.
It’s tremendously destructive, is what I am getting at.
The old Peter Principle.
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A business I worked at had a supervisor who terrorized the staff all weekend. Lied, intimidated, and generally made life miserable. Before I left I counted that she was personally responsible for the early departure of at least 12 employees. Each employee at this particular location cost 4 to 7K to train before hitting production.
It is much easier to fire white men when they don’t make the grade.
They should have been left as salesmen. They were happy and effective.
But they did not understand finance or production or logistics. These were all things they were suppose to be managing.
One admitted to me that he had no idea what the figures I brought him to be signed off on meant.
I hated to leave but there was no way I would stop what was coming. The next time there was a dip in the economy the place went out of business.
many places are at-will employers that don’t need a specific reason to let you go.
it’s not always one way. the employer can break the “trust” too.
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