Which Employee Should Be Terminated

TRANSCRIPT

Colleen Albiston Terminating a Long-Term Employee

Early on in my career I read an article called “Outrageous Ideas,” and it came to me at just the right moment. And the outrageous idea that stuck with me was “fire people, it’s good for morale.” And it sounds a little crass, but the lesson in it was one that came at the right time in my career. I was young, I had been put in charge of a number of people that had more experience and years than I did, and a couple of them that liked to take every opportunity to, you know, let me know how they could perhaps do my job better. And I’d been through the normal things where you would assert yourself and in the nicest possible way I’d been through the less than politically correct approach of saying, “I really appreciate your feedback. If someone had felt that you were the right person for the job they would have given you this job. I have it, and so I’d really appreciate if you would work with me rather than against me.”

But it was becoming obvious that this was a challenge that I was having to face every day, and it wasn’t about me. I could separate that it wasn’t just about the leadership; it was about someone that wasn’t happy in their role, that had been there for a very long time. And so I started the performance review process, and as we got to the eleventh hour of terminating a very long-term employee, someone came in for the save. And I had also read the files and found that this had happened a number of years ago, again, at the eleventh hour the paperwork has all been done, and someone comes in and all of a sudden you can’t let this individual go.

And so, pushed this through and had the conversation with the person that this was not the role or the place for them to be at this time. Now, I’d like to tell you that that conversation went really well, but I am not a liar, so I won’t. But the scariest thing that I did was after that, I had a meeting with the entire department, and I had to face 40 people, probably 20 of whom had worked with this individual for more than five years, and I was in year one. And I let them know what had happened. This person has been a long-service employee of the organization; I’m sure that they’ve made great contributions throughout their career. Where we are as a team and an organization at this time, this isn’t the best place for them to be, and they are leaving the organization as of today.

Well, a couple of things came from that. The first one was someone came to me and said, “No one has ever talked to us candidly when someone left before. People just disappear. And I want to thank you. And even though this person was my friend, I feel that I understand why it happened, and I just appreciate that you took the time to meet with us.”

And the second thing that happened was as the day passed and the weeks came and went, I came to understand that there were 15 people that really felt that they had been carrying the work of this

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Transcript

individual, or that their negativity had an impact on the whole team, and the team blossomed without them. Now, I’d like to think that that person went on to better things as well, but I think that it’s very rare in a leader’s career that there’s someone that you really don’t think is a fit, that everyone else thinks is stellar, and so that was really my story about, you know, firing people is good for morale, as crass as it sounds.

But it’s really caused me to make sure that when I had people that were on my team, that I gave them the counseling that I could to help them succeed, and if then ultimately felt that they were no longer a fit for what was needed on the team in the organization at that moment in time, that I had the confidence and the best interests of the team of delivering the message and letting them move on and letting the team move forward.

©2013 Skillsoft Ireland Limited 2