If you’ve ever had employees
work for you then you’ve likely been in the situation where you have to decide
whether or not to let them go for poor job performance. How did you get there? What
led that employee to perform poorly? If you’re in a leadership role your job is
to set your people up to succeed; to give them what they need to do what you
hired them to do.
There are legitimate reasons
to fire someone little to no notice. For me that would involve willful or gross
negligence, or criminal activity. In those cases the answer is fairly simple – termination is
warranted right then. There are other factors, as well, that would rightly lead
to ending their employment with you.
But, if you have an employee
that is struggling to do what you hired them to do and you are considering
letting them go, there are three questions that you must answer before
you make that decision:
1.
Did the employee know what was expected
of him/her? It seems like a simple
question but I have worked with a few clients that had let people go without
knowing if the person knew what was expected of them. If your employee doesn’t
have a clear understanding of what is expected of them, then how could they
know what they were supposed to do?
2.
Was the employee properly trained to
perform their duties? There have been many times when I have seen people
thrown into a job or a task without adequate, or sometimes any, training to do
the job. That seems incredulous in this day and age but it happens more often
than you would think. If they haven’t been shown the proper way to do the job,
how can you expect them to do it properly?
3.
Does the employee have the right tools
to do the job? This is the last question I ask. If they know what is
expected of them, and have been properly trained to do the job, were they given
the appropriate tools? If the employee’s job is to drive nails into the wall,
sending them out with a spoon is of little help. Why weren’t they given a
hammer?
Our job as leaders is to set
our employees up to succeed. The calculation is simple – our success is
dependent upon their success. If you can’t honestly answer ‘YES’
to each of these questions, you have set them up to fail. And in that case, you
have failed as a leader, too.
Make sure you can answer each
of those questions with a resounding ‘YES’.
For more information about employee engagement,
or to see how The Cobalt Group can help you with this or any other business or
leadership challenges you are facing, Contact
us.
We want to hear what you think. Leave a comment and let’s start a
discussion.
