You probably do not need to take on the blame for them being fired. Were they doing their job properly? Were they goofing off? They were fired for what they were or were not doing. Not because you decided to get them. You were doing your job properly. The fault normally belongs to the employee.
Right to work or no, many companies are afraid to fire someone because of the potential liability of being sued for discriminatory termination unless there is clear and unambiguous cause. And because this is such an entrenched philosophy, HR often has little experience or willingness to support a termination unless directed to do so by executive management. The result is that line managers–those directly responsible for managing working level employees–often have little support and no direct authority to fire anyone. You can make the argument that this reduces the capriciousness of terminations, but it also prevents eliminating terrible employees unless they do something genuinely threatening or hostile.
Stranger
CA is an ‘at will’ state. Regardless, every employer I have been at would not allow a person to be fired unless there was robust documentation that adhered to the company’s progressive discipline guidelines. The process protects the employer and assists in defending lawsuits, of which there were many. The result is the vast majority of groups had one or more terrible employees that had no business having their job. Sometimes this could go on for years, where the bad employee is a cancer to the group dragging down morale and performance.
Most good employees don’t care about the progressive discipline process because they will never experience it. It’s supposed to help employees from being treated unfairly but in reality I find it hurts good employees more than helps them because it forces them to endure poor performers while their managers have to spend time and resources exiting folks that should just be fired.
I work in private contract security. Low-level stuff - shopping malls and warehouses. Our guys don’t carry anything but keys and radios, and they have the barest minimum training allowed by the state. Turnover is very, very high. Our guards are just one step up above McJob holders. Contract security at this level is a volatile, cutthroat business. A client will look for any reason at all to terminate a contract and find someone cheaper to work with. The profit margin for the guard company is razor thin, which keeps the wages for our guards low, too.
Despite all that, it’s really rare for us to fire anyone. I supervise one of our higher-profile accounts at a very fancy upscale shopping mall. When I get someone assigned to my site that really genuinely can’t hack it, one of two things happen - they get frustrated and quit, or we tell corporate to transfer them to a warehouse where they can’t embarrass themselves. I’m sure some of my guards look at the under-performers at our site and wonder why we haven’t fired that guy… The answer is that if I fired them, I would have to cycle through at least three more even worse deadbeats before I found someone who could do even the bare minimum. All that high turnover comes from people getting frustrated and quitting, or leaving when they find a better job.
Those two people didn’t take your coaching and created their own destiny, so it’s on them and not on you.
That said, Skald, you are a good guy. The fact you had a rough night after working with them says positive volumes about who you are as a person. The world, or at least corporate America, would be a better place if more managers were like you. At least at my former Global 50 employer, every VP has at least sold half their soul. They don’t stand up for what is right, or call out the madness of the powers that be, they just tell their underlings to bring me the head of xx number of people. And the underlings say “yes boss” and so it flows down the chain.
Well, for instance, everyone else would pitch in and help when a coworker was swamped. Everyone else would constantly be looking for more efficient ways to do things. My underperformer was a warm body, avoiding any extra work.
While I wouldn’t fire her for that, neither would I give her a raise.
I think a lot of the lack of change is just inertia. My boss is very kind and mild. She would not tend to let and “adequate” employee go. The only folks that leave my place really have to display very clear violations, sometimes several, of work rules.
My company appears to be hiring a consultant group to improve our whole organization. This consultant focuses on ‘culture change’ in both leadership and staff. I’m on the staff side, so have been poking around to see what the consult group is all about.
One thing they recommend is that management divide employees into three groups and then have the managers schedule a 1:1 meeting with every employee, starting with the best ranked employees. The consultant clearly describes the qualities that are used in the rankings (things like positive/negative attitude, offers problem solving solutions v complaining, and commitment, which is measured in things like calling in sick a lot, excessive breaks times, conducting personal business on the clock, making management look bad, etc.).
The reason for calling the better employees in first is that these employees will reassure the others that meeting went well.
The high ranking employee meeting are positive ones. These employee are ‘re-recruited’ by thanking them for their work, offering examples of things they do well, and asked if they have things they would like to see done.
The middle group interview is also a positive one. This group is reassured that they are valuable employees offered one or two areas that need improvement with dates to meet whatever the goal(s) management desires to see.
The bottom group interview is intentionally not a positive one. This group is told “I would not rehire you today. You do (whatever). That’s not our way. You will show (whatever) improvement by this date, you will be let go.”
The consultant group advises to get rid of the bottom group. The reasons they cite are that the bottom group is bad for both business and the moral of the other employees, and that the organization would be better off taking a chance with fresh, new people who can be freshly aligned to the companies vision, mission and values.
They point out that even if the employee is technically good at their job, their negative qualities (poor or negative attitude, blame placing on others, an us-versus-them view, passive/aggressive, meets minimum standards, etc) outweigh their benefits to the company as a whole.
I’m interested to see how this all plays out over the next year or two. We recently had a lot of big changes in our organization’s highest members. My field is highly competitive and undergoing a lot of big changes right now (health care). I’ve been with the company for a very long time (the 20 year range) and I think I bounce between a better to middle range type of employee (with occasional dips to the lower rank over the years during times of personal stress such as when a parent and a sibling died and whatnot).
Over the past seven years I have hired three full-time people and three part-time people.
Not only can I not fire the poor performers, but I had zero choice in hiring them. In each case, my customer told me who to hire, e.g. “Crafter_Man, you must hire Bob Smith.”
Talk about a shitty position to be in…
I don’t understand where you got from my post that petty middle managers should be able to fire on a whim. The OP asked why managers don’t fire *under-performing *employees. I provided a list of possible reasons that have nothing to do with performance.
I work in a white-collar job (and have done for 20+ years), and I assure you, people can tell if I’m doing my work. In fact, every white-collar job I’ve had had had measurable outcomes (which, BTW, are the hallmark of a good job description, annual performance plan, and annual review), so I don’t know what kind of work could be done without some kind of measurable output.
This.
China Guy, I know of what you speak. My former employer, a subsidiary of Blue Fucking Cross (never mind the location) is like this. There are some evil, soulless fuckwits out there running companies, and I am often surprised that we don’t have more work shootings when I hear how employees are treated at some places.
Skald, what China Guy said. Being upset at having to fire someone means you’re human.
This describes at least three of my employees.
My full-time technician, “Bill,” makes over $60K/year. I hired him in 2009. Bill is totally incompetent; I work in a lab, and he is completely clueless when it comes to setting up tests, using tools, taking data, writing, etc. He needs his hand held to do even the simplest task. And that’s when he’s doing something. I would estimate he spends 90% of the time hanging out in people’s offices and laughing at their jokes.
I would love to get rid of Bill. But he spends all day going up and down the hall and kissing people’s asses. Everyone loves Bill: “Bill? Oh, he’s such a nice and funny guy!”
Last month I learned Bill got a promotion. I heard it third-hand; I was left out-of-the-loop. I learned that Bill went to my boss and told him he wanted a promotion. And he got one.
In theory, in an “at-will” state you can, outside of protected categories (race, religion, etc.) be fired at any time for any reason at all.
In practice, most companies have a process and even very small companies will have some sort of documentation because the flip side of that is that any fired employee can file a lawsuit alleging discrimination, and those are expensive even if your side wins.
I live and work in an at-will state but my employer originated in a different state and, on top of that, for several decades had a unionized work force (and in some states still does). For consistency and convenience sake, the non-union stores utilize some of the same policies and procedures as the union ones do.
This leads to some interesting effects. For example, if you have otherwise perfect attendance and then one day just don’t show up to work, don’t call in, nothing, you won’t get fired. You WILL piss off your manager(s) and co-workers, but doing that just once isn’t going to get you fired (in reality, it’s usually something catastrophic like an accident, heart attack, etc. that gets explained in a couple days at most). On the other hand, coming back from your break time 5 minutes late enough times in a row WILL get you fired even if your performance is otherwise stellar. Basically, truly good employees will not be summarily fired for a one-time event, but chronic screw-ups will be shown the door. The attendance thing is very important because our jobs are not the sort you can do via telecommuting, you have to actually be there.
Then we have the Dragon Lady Manager. A lot of people hate and fear her. There are constant rumors she’s on her last legs, she’s about to be fired, people complain hoping she’ll be fired… look, she’d not the most personable of people, not a lot of sympathy or empathy there, but what my co-workers don’t get is that the company keeps her on because she gets shit done. I don’t like all her methods, either, but she gets results, and that’s what the higher ups want to see. (Personally, I actually am OK with her, but then, I’ve worked with that personality before. I have strategies. Actually, just yesterday she gave me some very good advice on how to do one of my tasks better and faster - I don’t have to like her on a social level to thank her for doing that, and yes, I did express my appreciation.) She isn’t going to get fired as long as she gets results (and shows up on time, and doesn’t steal or commit any other “instant death” violation, all of which are easy to avoid if you’re a sane human being).
I was a bit unsettled to hear another store director recently state that firing people doesn’t bother her, but then she explained that after following the company process for disciplining someone, if they are fired, it’s really their own doing. Which is true to some extent, especially in regards to attendance which is the number one reason people are let go from where I work. (Not sure where theft stands on the list, but that’s another one, and we’ve all seen it applied to management as well as underlings) When a company process is fair and applied fairly that does put more of the onus on the employee.
On the other hand, I have worked for companies where the “PIP” is used as a firing tool - NO ONE ever escapes the PIP, it’s a death knell, and the performance requirements are set so high no one could ever possibly meet them. That is a dishonest use of the tool and it’s reprehensible - and yes, at least one of those companies have been sued over that use, and wound up settling out of court over the matter. That’s the flip side of documenting - if you wind up documenting that you painted someone into a corner and made it impossible for them to win you can wind up paying for that, too.
Yep.
I was asked by my boss to fire someone who worked for me. I didn’t - I counseled her into a different role in the organization. She’d been there more than 20 years, she wasn’t going to be terribly employable outside the organization, she was burned out on the job she was doing, but she had a lot of institutional knowledge about the company. She’d had great reviews before my boss got the organization - and while she wasn’t performing for me or my boss, I could understand why not (the direction of what she was supposed to do changed drastically and she didn’t buy in - plus they got rid of her boss and brought me in on the flimsiest of reasons).
Worst toddler toy EVAR!
THIS. My old job in Chicago was like this. After a huge spanking for discrimination in the 80s, they pretty much made it impossible to fire anyone that showed up everyday and didn’t assault someone. I had someone with a blatant drinking problem on my team who often screwed up because if it, and we could do nothing but ask him about getting counseling (of course, he didn’t see a problem). All we could really do is shortlist them, meaning if we ever down-sized they were the first to go.
Really bad for morale, as your good people kinda stop caring when bad ones can hold the same job forever and everyone else cleans up after them.
It also had another impact: the best people often refused promotion. See, mgmt could be fired on a whim, so moving up meant cleaning up after incomptetents you couldn’t get rid of, and if a really big screw-up happened you were likely out as the scapegoat while the person responsible got a talking to and another ten years or so. :rolleyes:
Also I would like to point out that “right to work” doesn’t actually mean a pissed-off former employee won’t sue you after they’ve been shown the door, it just means they are much less likely to prevail on a wrongful termination suit. Depending on their level of commitment to the litigation process, a company may still have to rack up not-trivial amounts of cash defending the lawsuit. Or their insurance carrier will - and that will cost them in the premium in future renewals, I can assure you - as well as in the flat cost of their lost deductible, which is often fairly high.
Time for an anecdote! I work a white-collar office sort of job (I’m a legal secretary), and about a year ago I quit my former job. I remained close to the firm administrator at my former place of employment, and she’s kept me informed of their attempts to find an acceptable replacement for me over the past 10 months. The current count stands at 14. Granted, my former boss is an enormous jackhole and there’s no mistaking working for him is at very best challenging, but that is fourteen people who have at least baseline qualifications to hack the job and interview well enough to get past the firm administrator have run through that job in the past 10 months. Mostly they quit, but she’s had to fire two of them - one for coming to work openly and obviously intoxicated and one for an egregious ethical violation about which she did not specify, but about which I can make some educated guesses.
I can assure you, if she found someone who was merely “underperforming” she would by damn never fire them. “Underperforming” is still hugely better for her than the current situation - every single time she has to hire someone else, it sucks a goodly portion of her own time - which she needs to do her actual job - away from her actual job functioning. Not to mention, the workload doesn’t stop when the desk is empty - an underperforming person is still presumably doing something, which takes off at least some of the burden.
Sometimes what it boils down to is that “some work” is vastly preferable to “no work”. There is no guarantee that anyone you hire to replace an underperformer won’t be either the same (and you’re stuck with the changeover loss of productivity to gaps in coverage of a task or training or the like) or even worse.
Instead of firing, can you reduce an employee’s pay? Win-win; the company doesn’t have to fire, the employee doesn’t get fired, the message is sent, the employee has a warning shot fired across the bow.
And yet when I put down “do the bare minimum required to keep my job” on my goals form, my boss gets mad.
I don’t understand these need to have everyone always “exceed expectations”. If that’s what you want, make that the expectation.
Arbitrarily reducing a employee’s salary is more difficult than firing. The only time I’ve ever seen that happen is when an employee voluntarily accepted a demotion or when there is an across the board RIP.
Stranger
I snipped most of your post in this quote, but I want you to know that your story made me feel like I was reading my own biography about struggling to get HR to do the right thing.
In my case, I had an uncomfortable conversation with an employee about his performance, with another manager as a witness. This employee went to HR and claimed I threatened him, and physically shoved him during this conversation.
Even though there was a witness in the room, and even though there was surveillance footage proving nothing even remotely like what this employee described actually happened, HR wouldn’t permit his termination. HR made him sign a statement acknowledging his lie, gave him a one day suspension, and sent him back to me.
It’s fucking bonkers to think just how destructive that decision was. The employee bragged to anyone who would listen that he beat the system, which really pissed off everyone who was already sick of his laziness and incompetence. A few weeks later, after he had alienated every one of his work mates, he called off sick for a period of a few days. Then he stopped bothering to call, and just didn’t show up. A few weeks after that, HR finally supported his termination on the grounds of job abandonment. What a joke.