What would The Donald do? Should you do the opposite?!

Let go, dismissed, terminated, sacked, fired. For simplicity, I’m going stick with the tried and true ‘fired’ when it’s ‘that time’ in this post. Plus, ‘terminated’ really seems too personal. This action should not be about personal feelings, it’s all business.

You know it. It’s just not working out with one of your employees. It can happen with folks you’ve worked with for years, but often times it’s with new hires. What are you to do?

As much as the chemistry and talent match may seem to be there during the interview process, you’re just never going to know if there’s a true fit until they’re hired, given goals and measured on them. It’s similar to the disclaimer mutual funds make when touting their above-market returns: “past performance cannot be guaranteed in the future”, meaning as much success as your newbie may have had in the past, no matter how glowing their references are, you never know how they’ll do in the situation you need them for.

And the sooner you catch it, work on it and act on it, the better.

It’s always the same. So often, when you finally fire someone you look back and tell yourself “I wish I would have done this 3 weeks, or 3 months ago”. It’s human nature, I mean unless your employee is downright mean, lazy or dishonest it’s not pleasant to fire someone.

How long do you give it? There’s no hard and fast rule in my book, you have to trust your gut. Often, you and your new employee need at least a few months to see if you get into a good, productive working groove.

But other times, you know more quickly, as in weeks. And in those cases, it’s best to address your concerns in very concrete terms, establish an action plan for rapid improvement and then take action immediately.

Case in point, we recently hired only our second ‘out of network’ team member. By ‘out of network’, I mean outside of the circle of folks we’ve worked with, trust and just ‘know’ over the long haul, as well the people they respect and refer to be part of the team. It’s a great way to build a team, and we prefer that approach whenever possible. But it’s not always possible in certain situations due to timing or plain ‘ol availability. And hey, fresh personalities and experience and perspectives can be a great addition to any growing team.

But in this case, it was clear from the start that there were serious issues and we had to let this person go within 1 month of joining Dasheroo. And it’s never a pleasant experience, although it did reinforce much of what I’d learned in the past.

First, do your part; it’s a 2-way road and the hiring (and firing) process is a significant investment:

Have a good on-boarding process. Provide information that brings your new hire into the fold. This includes information over and above their individual responsibilities, and should include things like the background of the company, why it was founded, what the vision is, and who the founders are. You should also include a glossary of terms that may be specific to your company or industry, and contact information and brief backgrounds of all, or key, team members. At Dasheroo, we created what we think is a great on-boarding package, complete with all the above, plus actual how-to training videos specific to the new hire’s job.

Set clear expectations: The more senior the position, the less point-by-point specific you should have to be regarding exact task deliverables. But for more junior to mid-level hires, set specific, task-level goals that are easy to measure against, like meeting a specific schedule, or the quality of work in a given discipline whether it be coding, writing or speaking to people.

Be honest: There is no room to slip into passive aggressive behavior. If your employee doesn’t know that you are disappointed, or plain pissed off, with their performance it’s your fault. You have a responsibility to address it head on. Be direct and factual, and provide specific examples of the performance or behavior at issue.

Be constructive: Show your employee a path to success. A way to improve, with specific examples of what they need to do in order to meet your expectations. Again, at the most specific level possible. Are they using all the tools available to them? Are they prioritizing their tasks effectively?

Take action! If you have devoted your time to the above actions, and it’s just not working, or looking like it’s not going to work anytime soon, cut the cord and fire that person. Be factual and direct and do not apologize. In my experience this meeting should be no more than 5 minutes and, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise if you have followed the steps above.

My startup lessons learned? It’s a business, not personal decision, and the quicker you take decisive action the better – for your team’s moral & productivity, your respect, and your investors.

What’s your experience and thoughts on this subject? Let me know!