Excerpt from a YouTube talk (Jason M. Lemkin) about employee retention during company scaling. The speaker argues companies must strike a balance: avoid keeping toxic or ill-fitting employees simply to fill roles as the company grows. Retaining people who no longer fit or no longer love the company harms both the individuals and the organization; forcing placement for unhappy employees is a mistake.
You have to create a delicate balance on retention. You don't want toxic people staying. You don't want people who are no longer a good fit for the company. And the challenging part with scale is you will get people who really liked being at your company at 10, people who no longer like it at 200. One of the biggest mistakes company can make is holding onto those people and going, we just have to find a place for this person. We have to it. It is not good for those people to stick around if they don't love the company and your mission any longer. And it's not good for the company to keep people around who are no longer happy or productive.
