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Firing Slow - Conflict Avoidance 101

Slacker Manager recently did a post featuring a Dick Costolo entry called No False Positives.  The basic premise of Dick's comments is that waiting for the perfect hire (the hire slow philosophy) isn't always the best way to go, especially with positions that have strong performance metrics allowing you to quickly fire the non-performer.   Dick notes Sales as a prime candidate for the hire quick, fire quick philosophy:Apprentice

"You can hire fast, fire fast with sales people. It's very very hard to comprehend a priori who will be able to best sell your service/product in a particular region to a particular customer base. Since this is an area of the company where people generally are responsible for very straightforward, measurable and explicit individual goals (ie, sales targets), it's much easier to communicate and implement a hire fast, fire fast kind of policy with this group. You have to ensure you really stick to it however, and understand when company processes and products are causing the sales ramp challenge(s)."

Slacker Manager also notes that there is no "fire slow" school of thought.  Everyone wants non-performers out the same day they bring it to your office as the HR generalist supporting their functional area.   

The biggest slow down effect on the termination process of a non-performer is that managers generally don’t want to deal with the conflict of sitting down with the person to advise them of the gaps between expected and actual performance. Instead, most managers want to wait until they have had 3 months of performance below spec and fire in the first conversation they have had with the person.   

With this in mind, the best solution for HR Generalists who may be tagged with the label of being "non-responsive" or "barriers" to the termination process is to go on the offensive and let all know up and down the organization that they will work quickly to support the operators of the business, but those operators have to confront the non-performance and have actual coaching conversations with the employee in question.  Sounds simple, but conflict is never easy, especially for less experienced managers.

On second thought, hiring slow, firing fast does happen - it's called The Apprentice, which seems to be on it's last legs.  When is the last time you heard anyone talking about this show?

Comments

Evil HR Lady

Of course, my company's fast fire tends to be "hey, we'll label the person a non-willful non-performer and give the person a severance package." I saw documentation for one such firing that stated, "even though he was rated [highest possible rating] last year, it has become apparent that he lacks the skills to perform the job."

Umm, yeah, why don't we just say, "New boss. Doesn't like old guy. So, let's fire him!"

This would be a great carnival of HR submission (hint!)

Marshall20Wendi

This is understandable that money makes people independent. But what to do if someone doesn't have money? The one way is to receive the business loans or just auto loan.

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