Lynda ArtesaniLegal Accountant and Data Migration Specialist at The Proper Trust

Are you struggling with hiring A Players?

19 Apr 2024 · 1 min

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In this segment, Dr. Sabrina discusses her work with small business owners who seek help with work‑life balance and employee issues. She explains that many owners expect her to coach underperforming staff into high‑performers, but she argues that some employees cannot be transformed through coaching alone. She advises owners to fire such employees to protect culture and to recruit A‑players instead. The owners push back, citing the difficulty of finding qualified replacements in small, rural towns, highlighting a tension between ideal hiring practices and local labor market constraints.

Chapters

I started getting a lot of clients who were small business owners, and they wanted to talk to me about 2 issues: work-life balance and employee problems. And they saw me as a psychologist who could help them solve their employee problems. And so they, they would say to me, you know, I have these team members, they don't hit expectations, they just kind of show up and wait around to be told what to do. And so I would work with them and try to help them coach these team members. But I quickly came to realize, like, this is— there, you can't coach this. This— you can't take somebody somebody who's a warm body and turn them into a highly engaged, motivated employee. And so I just was straight up with these business owners and I said, look, you need to fire them. They're hurting your culture and you need to hire some A-players. And every one of them said to me, you don't understand, Dr. Sabrina, we're a small business owner in a small town in a rural area. We just have to make do.