Blog Post: Small Employers: The pitfalls to organic hiring and the obstacles to managing poor performers out of your organization

They must meet reasonable, yet demanding, expectations; this is clearly an important requirement for all employees. Some employees are quite capable of meeting such expectations while others simply are not.

Prior to writing off an employee as someone who can't do the job, it is essential that the employee's direct supervisor's ability to manage be carefully evaluated. In some cases you might have a “C” supervisor that’s the real issue; although, each quarter your HR lead should conduct a detailed turnover report denoting what work groups, supervisors and managers have the highest turnover rates, as well as which one’s have the lowest (the lowest, however, is not necessarily a good thing; you might have a manager that’s not holding people accountable and allowing them to “slide by”). 

Keep in mind that a supervisor is responsible for hiring, training, coaching/ mentoring and directing the work of his/her direct reports. The first question we ask when an employee has been tagged as a "bad employee" is whether or not the supervisor of that employee is doing his/her job. In many cases the answer is an emphatic "no".  When this is the case, the starting point for dealing with the employee's performance issues is with the supervisor.

However, for purposes of this blog, we will assume that the supervisor is performing effectively. Accordingly, the employee has been given the proper training, has had expectations clearly communicated to him/her, has been made aware of performance problems and has been properly mentored in an attempt to correct those deficiencies.

When this has happened and the employee's performance continues to fall below those reasonable, but demanding expectations, it is time to take appropriate measures to remove that person from the job they currently hold; however, that does NOT mean transferring this worker to a different department or job – which is all too common with small employers. 

Employers need to recognize that when they transfer a “problem” employee to another area of the business that they are actually rewarding that employee.  More importantly, however, this action also tells all of your employees that if they don’t like their current job or supervisor, all they have to do is perform poorly and the organization will find a different position for them.  Are these really the messages you want your staff to walk away with??  NO!

A marginal employee that has been hired into a position for which they are not well suited will almost never be able to make the transition to meeting defined expectations consistently. Perhaps the most important issue in business today is the inability of companies to match people to jobs. The degree to which employees are placed into jobs they are not cut out for is staggering – particularly with small organizations. 

As a result, what tends to happen with small employers is that they hire people by “word of mouth” in an effort to save both time and money.  Thus, each person is brought into the organization based on a pre-existing relationship they have with someone already working for the company (whether it be a former colleague, neighbor, relative or significant other).   

Unfortunately, what inevitably happens is that an employee is hired and the job is created (or made to fit) for the employee rather than the employer drafting an accurate position description and then sourcing candidates that meet the specific criteria they need in the position.  However, the bigger problem with this organic form of hiring is that you end up with a staff that has personal relationships, outside of work. 

Consequently, when it comes to issues such as confidentiality, morale, gossip, rumors and general dysfunction the employer will experience significantly greater difficulty in addressing (and resolving) these types of problems than if they had hired staff members that didn’t have pre-existing relationships.   Even more problematic, however, is how to terminate those “C” players that presumably have an Aunt, Uncle, Niece, Neighbor or friend that also works for the organization. 

Not only does this pull other employees into the equation, thus, creating more potential for a loss in productivity and poor morale; however, you also run the very strong probability of disciplining (or not disciplining) employees subjectively - based on the pre-existing relationship - rather than by objective and uniform criteria.  While all of this creates a level of dysfunction within the organization, it also creates the very real possibility of claims (or even legal actions) for unfair labor practices, preferential treatment, nepotism and harassment in the workplace.

This begs the question of whether marginal employees that companies have invested thousands of dollars into in terms of hiring, training and managing should be retained with the hope that the investment will someday pay off. In the vast majority of cases, these employees are not going to perform up to expectations. Therefore, to continue to pour more money into these marginal employees is keeping the company from achieving its own objectives.

In rare cases an employee who has not been performing up to expectations will somehow move toward meeting expectations and might even end up doing so on a consistent basis. However, when it is clear that the employee is not going to succeed in his/her current job, it is important that action be taken as quickly as possible. But it must be done in a manner that sends an appropriate message to other employees. That message is that employees will be given the opportunity to correct their performance deficiencies through careful mentoring and coaching and an emphasis on meeting expectations.

When those actions do not produce the desired results, the employee will be removed from their current job in a confidential, respectful and professional manner. By handling marginal employees correctly, other employees realize that the company is interested in making people perform, but will assist them up to a reasonable point if they are struggling to meet expectations. It also tells other employees that the company is not going to let marginal employees affect those around them.

If your company is not dealing effectively with employees who aren't meeting expectations, it is time to begin doing so. To ignore the problem erodes confidence in management by those employees who are performing effectively and it ultimately impacts the bottom line.