<p>After over a year in business, I’ve recently learned an important lesson about having employees: It is important to be sure that your employees are adding value to your business and never detracting from it. While this may seem obvious, my experience will show that it can be difficult to see the damage an employee is causing to your business.</p> <p>About a month ago, I had to fire my first employee. This particular employee worked for me for about nine months. During her time with my company, she routinely called in sick, showed up late and received client complaints. Through all of those situations, I tried very hard to work with her. I developed company guidelines to address her behavior, had counseling sessions with her, and woke up in the middle of the night trying to find creative ways to help her become a better employee. However, it wasn’t until I had reason to suspect her of fraud that I considered letting her go.</p> <p>Once I had reason to question this person’s employment at my company, I began to calculate the monetary loss that we experienced as a result of her tardiness, absenteeism, customer complaints, and the excess time and energy her behavior had required of me. My findings were staggering.</p> <p>After realizing how much this person had detracted from the value of my company and had potentially marred our reputation, I was quite angry with myself. I realized that the fault laid more with me than with my former employee. I allowed this person to destroy a small part of what I had created. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could have done differently, and how I should have addressed the situation much sooner.</p><p>All of this contemplation led me to define a new standard for my employees: They are to always add to and never detract from the value of the business. While this may seem simple and obvious, I needed this experience to open my eyes to the fact that I had too much, unnecessary tolerance for poor behavior and work ethic. Now that I am fully aware of the damage that a bad employee can cost not only to the bottom line, but to my reputation, company culture, and my personal well being, I am confident that future damage will be minimal.</p> <p>Here is a good analogy for the situation: I spent a lot of time building a house. Then I hired an employee to help me continue to build it. Once this person was working for me, she began to hammer away at the foundation instead of adding to it. I rushed up behind her and desperately tried to reattach the pieces that were crumbling off, but was unable to keep up with her damage. I was paying her to destroy part of what I had created. Additionally, since I was trying to fix her hammering, I was exerting too much energy to continue building onto the house myself.</p> <p>Why would I let someone do this? Because I thought I could fix a bad employee. I’ve realized that not only may it not be possible, but it may not be worth it. As an employer, you need to constantly evaluate your employees’ value to the company and be ready to take action if what you see doesn’t look good. Always be aware of the dynamics of your business and make the changes necessary to be sure that you are preserving the fruits of your labor.</p> <p> </p>
2008-04-14T01:57:33Z
2008-04-18T20:58:11Z
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a-lesson-for-new-managers-knowing-when-to-cut-ties
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2008-04-18T17:25:39Z
2008-04-18T17:25:39Z
<p>It is important to be sure that your employees are adding value to your business and never detracting from it. This seems obvious, but my experience shows that it can be difficult to see the damage an employee is causing.</p>
A Lesson for New Managers: Knowing When to Cut Ties
1
2009-02-24T09:43:55Z