MBA2155 Q&A Wednesday: Should I fire someone before I have a replacement?

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Hey oh welcome to the Hunter show. Your personal business workout every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Q and A Wednesday. On Q and A Wednesdays I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you got a question you want to ask, just go ahead and email me over@omar mba net today's question is from Dave and Dave asks, hey Omar, I have a particular question that deals with a specific situation in my business. Right now there's a team member that I have that is not performing well. We went through a bunch of evaluations. I tried to put them on a progress plan but things have not improved. Should I fire someone on my team before I've even found a replacement? I'm not sure what steps I should take. Should I find somebody first before I let them go? Would love your advice on the situation and thanks for all the help throughout the years with the podcast, Dave. Dave, it's my pleasure. This is why I do the podcast to help business owners like you and today I'll be helping you or trying to help you with this question, with this dilemma that's on your hands when it comes to your team member that you're going to have to let go. Do you wait until you find somebody to replace them to have a smooth kind of handover transition? Or do you let them go immediately and then try to start finding somebody new? I've been through this a few times, so I'm going to share with you what has worked and what I've learned in my own experience. Hopefully it will shed some light and help you through your own situation. I'm going to share with you some circumstances where I believe you should let go of somebody to fire somebody and cut them out of your business immediately. In what situations is actually better to have an amicable situation where you have a smooth transition and handover process to the new team member? And I'll also add a few tips on how to handle all this, how to actually put this all together and make it happen. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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Letting Go of a Team Member Firing somebody on your team is never easy for several reasons. 1. You've invested a lot in this person. You've taken the time to help them, train them, onboard them, integrate them into the team. When things are not working out, we often see the writing on the wall, know where it's heading. This is what it sounds like is happening with Dave and he wants to know should I fire them immediately or should I wait until I find a replacement? I also want to note that I know how difficult this could be not only on you but on your team. Whenever there's somebody who's being let go or a transition or a shift, it's like a mini earthquake that happens and it creates a sense of instability and you have to do some over communicating and be transparent with your team because you don't want your team to feel like they're next or your team members to think they're next. So you want to make sure. As much as you can. You paint a clear picture of what happened. Like, you know, this person wasn't a good fit for our needs. We wish them all the best, thanks for their help and their efforts when they were here, and just tell them what's going to happen next. Like this is not happening because the company's going down, or I'm just some sort of maniac. You want to make sure that you address this to the team. I really recommend this, especially if you do it all hands or some sort of all department meeting. So let's talk about the question at hand. Dave's got somebody that he now knows he has to fire. He has to let go. Not sure if he should let this person go immediately or he should wait until he finds a suitable replacement and then have a, you know, a handover where the current employee hands over their tasks to the new employee. I first want to address when I believe it's absolutely necessary to fire somebody immediately. Now, obviously this goes without saying, but I'll say it. If somebody's doing something that is outright wrong, illegal, breaking some serious trust and rules in your business, and this requires you to fire them immediately and kind of escort them out the building, this can happen in business. This happens all the time. So we just need to be aware of it. But from the sounds of Dave's question, this is not the situation. The more likely situation where I would recommend you fire somebody immediately is when somebody's having a negative impact on the team. I've had this before in my companies where a team member might be talented, they're smart, they do their work, they get the job done, but their attitude is absolutely horrible. It just stinks. Right? And it taints everything they do, taints the relationships in the office. They might be difficult to work with, they might be rude, they might be obnoxious, they might be inconsiderate, and it's affecting other people in the company. They're negatively impacting other aspects of the business. And by keeping them, you're actually continuing to harm your business and your team members and people that are working hard and doing the right thing and are not in a situation where you're trying to save their job.

Right?

They're actually doing their job perfectly well. Your job as the leader, as the company manager, right? The person that is supposed to be managing the experience for everybody working at your company. Your job is to protect them, to make sure that they have a great environment, that they have an enjoyable place to come to work to every day. And if that's not happening because of somebody's attitude or the way they're treating other people. You got to make sure you're vigilant about that. And in these cases, you just got to fire quickly. You just got to say, hey, thanks, I need you to leave. This is not a good fit. And then find a suitable way to kind of end that relationship. And obviously this all depends on what kind of agreement you had when you employed them and all that kind of stuff. But the point here is that you can further damage your business by keeping them around. Now you might be saying to yourself, omar, this person does some important stuff. I can't just let them go. The business will stop. Well, I want you to question that for a moment. Will the business stop? Will you not be able to do business anymore? I thought that too, but I thought I just can't do new things. I can continue to sell my products and services and things can continue. I'll have a little bit of a delay of the new things coming out, but my business can continue. And continuing in a enjoyable environment for my team is more important than me, you know, meeting my deadlines or goals. It's very important for you to create a safe space for mental health, emotional health for your team. So that should take the priority. If they're absolutely critical in the tasks they do every day, actually impact the day to day management of your business, or it brings in money or fulfills a service or product, then take a look at all the tasks they do. See if you can split up their tasks amongst other people on the team, delegate, kind of split, and they're going to do a little bit extra overtime, maybe you'll compensate them in some way. But the point here is that this is a temporary thing until you find somebody new. Remember, this is not easy. This whole thing is not easy. But sometimes you got to make some hard decisions to do what's best for your team. Now, in a lot of situations, it's not a good fit and both of you are starting to feel like it's not a good fit. And in these situations, what I recommend as much as possible to aim for is to have amicable, safe, civil transition of positions, meaning somebody's transitioning out, somebody's transitioning in. So if you can plan that and start hiring somebody, that'd be great. And if the person that you're letting go also feels like, hey, I don't know if I fit in here. You can work with them and say, hey, listen, how about we have a plan for the next two to three months where we get somebody to come in and take over your position. In the meantime, you can look for a job. I'll give you a letter of recommendation and kind of highlight the areas of why I think you're a good candidate or your strengths. And this could literally just be not a good fit for your needs in your company. They could be a great fit somewhere else. And this happens more often than you think. And this employee that's leaving can help you hire somebody new, can help you screen for CVs and hire, the hiring process, interview process, and even help train them as they are moving into a new position and starting with you at the company. Now, obviously, this is going to take cooperation from them, so open up about that. You might be surprised, they might be suffering and be like, I am looking for a new job, but I don't want to quit on these people. You can let them off the hook and say, hey, it's okay, we're not a good fit. Go ahead, find something new and help me find someone new. I've also experienced this situation where I had somebody who approached me and said, hey, this is an opportunity I want to go after. This person was great. I wasn't looking to fire them. They were fantastic. And they said to me, I'd love to take on this new position, but I'm really sorry, but I have to go. And we came to an agreement. Hey, how about you help me find your replacement so you can help them on board and train them to be great at the job that you're about to leave. And it worked out, and we wish them all the best. And sometimes you got to say goodbye to good people, not just bad people, okay? And you want to do in a way that best suits you as a business as well as that individual.

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Now, finding somebody's replacement without letting them know is a tricky one. I would not recommend doing this because it's very hard to do this on the download because you're gonna have to post this job publicly. It's not easy to find good candidates if you can't publicly, you know, post on social or ask for people to give you referrals or recommendations to put it on your website, you know, your jobs page. I just don't recommend doing that. It's just easier for you to be honest and transparent with the team member and it's only fair. And you want this person to leave your company happy, right, with no ill feelings or ill will to have a good of working at your company and talk well of the way they were treated. They will respect you more. They'll be like, hey, at least they gave me a shot and at least they gave me a heads up and allowed me to find a new job. One thing I would add to this situation, before you make your next hire, you need to sit down and write down some notes, maybe just journal these ideas down. What did you do that caused you to hire this person that you're replacing? You need to learn from your experiences. You want to make sure when you make your next hire, you don't make the same mistakes. Because at the end of the day, you're in this situation because you hired this person. You have to take responsibility. Every time this happened to me, I had to tell myself, as much as I feel like aww. And upset that we're in this situation, it's my responsibility. I'm the one who hired this person. I'm the one who chose this person to work here. I had to give them an offer. No one forced me to do this. So at the end of the day, you need to ask yourself, what are some of the things I should have asked them to know if they're a good fit or not? What are some identifiers or situations or questions that I could have asked to get the information I need to make a better decision? Maybe I should have gave them a project or put them on a little trial or a mini little task and that would have showed me the things I needed to know. Write down the qualities that are not working out for you right now so that you don't hire somebody with those qualities, right? And what qualities are you looking for? What are your non negotiable? For example, Nicole and I, when we hire somebody new on our team, there's a few things we do not negotiate on. We need to have these things in our people, the people that join our team, because it helps the company as a whole. The first thing is attitude. They have to have a positive attitude. The default should be smiling, right? They don't have to be, you know, sunshine and rainbows all the time, but you got to feel like they're a positive person and positive vibes are happening when you're with them. Two, they got to be willing to learn and change. They're hungry. They want to adapt. They want to take on responsibility. They want autonomy. We need people that are willing to grow because we're growing and we all have to grow and change with the company. The third thing and final thing is they got to have a sense of humor. They got to be somebody I would want to hang out with outside of work. Why? Because I'm going to be spending 8, 9, 10 hours a day with this person. Why do we all have to go through hell, right? I want to make sure that at least it's enjoyable to be in their presence. I always think, hey, we do an annual team retreat. If I hang out with them in the retreat, it'll be fun. It would be great to have a conversation with them, to have a drink, to have a meal, play ping pong. If it's not a hell yeah, then it's a no. Okay? And so these are the three values that we have. We gotta make sure that whenever we hire somebody, they have these three things. Notice that skills and experience are actually not one of them. Okay. Because those are easy to identify on a CV or in an interview. And even skills can be taught, right? You can gain a skill, but I can't teach attitude. I can't teach somebody who is a learner or wants to grow or wants to take ownership of their job. I can't teach a sense of humor. So if they don't have one of those three things, it's hard for me to say yes and hire them. So analyze what happened there so that you can continue to get better at the hiring process. Thanks so much, Dave, for that question. I hope that helped. If you got a question you want to ask and you want me to help you out here on Q and A Wednesday, just go ahead and email me over at Omar MBA Net. Of course, we only use your first name. We keep it anonymous as much as possible. If you don't want me to mention your name, you can say so as well. But not only will it help you get some perspective, but help everybody else that listens to this podcast. Over 120,000 daily listeners get over some tough humps in their business. Hey, if you love the show, the best thing you could do to say thank you is leave us a rating and review over on Apple Podcast or leave us a rating on Spotify. Thank you in advance for doing so. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. The hardest part of business is dealing with people, hiring, firing, managing, all that stuff. So don't beat up yourself. If you feel like this is hard or this is difficult, just accept the fact that this is difficult. This is going to be a hard few days, few weeks in my business. But you can do it. Every business has to do it, and it's a rite of passage for any business that grows and scales. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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