Getting away from the honor them, I present today’s hypo, set in Memphis, Tennessee. The location is important for two reasons. First, because Tennessee is an at-will employment state; you can fire anybody for any reason other than belonging to a protected class. Second, because Memphis is a majority black city.
In this scenario you are a corporate sales manager, leading a team of field sales reps, each of whom services a certain geographic territory. Your employees are assessed on five major criteria: bringing in new business, sustaining old business, productivity (number of prospecting, sales, and service appointments made), technical skill & knowledge, and miscellaneous behavior (things like keeping a good regulation, not embarrassing the company, not harassing other employees, and so forth). You have 16 reps on your team; corporate bean counters have decided to reduce that to 12. Refuse to reduce headcount as directed and you yourself will be fired. You’ve already eliminated the 4 best reps from consideration, and there are three people you wanted gone anyway (for sexual harassment, attempted embezzlement, and porn on a work computer). That leaves one to lay off. You’ve narrowed it down to one of the following.
SASHA’s sales numbers are significantly down this year, but in a way that is demonstrably not her fault. The most lucrative client in her area are the local ABC Inc
locations. At the beginning of the fiscal year, ABC opted to vendors to your biggest competitor, a decision made against the will of the local offices. Sasha worked her ass off both before and after this happened; she has brought in tons of new clients since then, and if you look at the non ABC part of her territory, her numbers are up by several percentage points.
But Sasha is also a racist You know this because recently (while trapped in a bathroom stall for reasons too disgusting to relate) you overheard her discussing her refusal to attend her sister’s wedding to a black man. “Bad enough I have to be nice to niggers at work,” she said. “No way I’m gonna watch my sister marry Mandingo. I’d probably get raped by one of her gorilla in-laws.”
After overhearing this conversation, you discreetly looked into Sasha’s work behavior. None of her co-workers of any race have anything but praise for her. She services black-owned businesses as responsibly as she does any other, and does not attempt to overcharge them. You have never confronted Sasha about the conversation you overheard, so she presumably thinks you remain ignorant of her racism.
COTÉ is one of the black employees who had nothing but good things to say about Sasha. Her own sales and productivity are way down. Everyone knows why. A year ago, her wife made the mistake of being black and visibly lesbian while driving through a small east town and in consequence ended up dead in a jail cell. Having supposedly shot herself in the mouth while her hands were cuffed behind her back. Nobody was ever prosecuted for this. Since then, Coté has had a hard time focusing on her work. She resisted going to counseling until you forced the issue to, but after six months of that has only improved barely an iota.
EMILY’s sales are actually up a little, because XYZ Company is big in her territory and they recently made the opposite decision as ABC did in Sasha’s. She does the bare minimum of sales and service calls and has not closed any new deals this quarter. You’re pretty sure you know why. Emily is Coté’s best friend, and since the death of the latter’s wife, has been very involved in the BLM movement. From her social media postings you can tell she’s doing a lot of that during business hours. You’ve counseled her to confine her activism to nights and weekends, but she doesn’t appear to be listening.
The thing missing from this hypothetical is my motivation as the manager. You’ve poisoned the well so heavily against “Sasha” (I will spell this in lowercase in the off-chance that it’s not an acronym) that if we are able to act on principle, then we have to fire Sasha. On the other hand, Tennessee is not exactly an economic powerhouse, so lifeboat ethics might apply here. Either way, you’ve failed to spell it out in the OP, so this hypothetical is probably going to be a trainwreck. Looking forward to your next one.
Fire Emily and give her territory to Sasha, who will bring it up to par. Based on work performance, Emily deserves the boot and Sasha doesn’t. Besides, presumably everyone will be expected to pick up the extra work when the sales force is reduced, and I don’t think Emily will miraculously become a model worker. I’d put Coté on a corrective action plan and expect her to start improving. Unfortunately, a dead spouse can only be used as an excuse for so long.
Memphis unemployment rates are at about 6% right now, so even though we Nashvillians would like to give it to Arkansas, it’s really not doing to badly and it shouldn’t be hard to find another job.
Explain the principle that says Sasha should be fired. She is doing her best for the company and absent a circumstance that she could not control would be doing well. If given another territory she will probably be in the black. Her racism is not affecting her work. The biggest reason to fire her is because you don’t like her. I wouldn’t like her either, but firing her is a bad business decision.
Why is Emily’s slacking – or bare-minimalism – against which she has been warned, more forgivable? She is only in the black because she has had the reverse of Sasha’s bad luck. She is no longer doing a major part of her job, bringing in new business, and this is arguably of her own free will. Is it her job to be noble rather than productive?
I’m almost with StGermain. Emily walks but split her territory between everyone else. Just land a few with the most room for improvement on Sasha’s desk. I have no more use for racists than most posters here, but she’s not making an issue of it in her professional life.
In the real world I would be the boss of the hypothetical you and would be deciding how to reconfigure the territories after downsizing. Geographically contiguous areas wouldl remain in one terrtory or another. But who would get which of hte new territories would depend on their productivity and proven selling ability; Sasha would get a good one.
Thanks to StGermain, we now know that Memphis unemployment is about 6%, and I know the southeast overall is doing fairly well, so we can dispense with the lifeboat ethics. I can get another job if I want to. (This is my real-life situation and heavily colors my response).
In that light, the only question is - in whose interests am I acting? If I’m acting as part of society - racists don’t get jobs. People who are suffering or who are doing good for society get a break. If I’m acting in the interests of the business… well, that question doesn’t even interest me, which probably explains why I’m more of a roving mercenary. Anyhow, the salient point is I have no problem injuring the company if it’s to punish someone for racist attitudes that have nothing to do with the job.
I didn’t intend any lifeboat ethics in this scenario. It’s imply practical. If you refuse to fire one of the three, the company will do it for you and may well fire you too. You lose control over who gets fire and maybe yur own job, and in return you get jack shit.
Why don’t racists get jobs? I remind you that Sasha’s crime consists of (a) not checking that all the stalls were empty before mouthig off, (b) holding an unpopular opinion., znc (c) using distasteful langauge. She’s not attempting to put her beiiefs into practice. She is not discriminating against anyone. She is not calling for her sister’s wedding ot be legally prohibited.
Why do yo get to police her beliefs?
Oh, and Emily is free to do all the good she wants to for society – as long as she does her job. Which is is clearly borderline at. Being borderline make her vulnerable in a downturn. She has done that to herself by doing activiest stuff on company ime rather than after work on weekends, and been warned about it.
I am a manager in a private business and I don’t answer to you. I use my power as I see fit until I get fired. I say racists get laid off, and if anyone challenges me on it I’ll say she came back 2 minutes late from lunch.
Sasha was careless enough to let me hear. It’s very likely she’ll be careless enough to let a black employee hear. If a complaint is pursued, I’ll either need to lie about what I knew, or admit that I knew she was spouting vile racist bullshit at work and did nothing about it.
I’m much more sympathetic to the other two employees. Their workplace ills are something I can forgive. Sasha goes.
Sasha refuses to go to her sister’s wedding because his sister is marrying a black man.
Sasha makes offensive statements about black people in private and apparently believes that black men are likely to rape her.
Sasha refrains fnrom making racist statements TO black people. (And since you are obviously monitoring at least one employee’s social media work, she also is not making such statements in any public forum either.)
Sasha is treating her black customer’s fairly and responsibly; she is doing what the company pays her to do.
By your own calculations, if not for the uncontrollable action of a third party, Sasha’s sales volume woul dbe acceptable. Her productivity is clearly acceptable; she was working her ass off both before and after the ABC Inc issue.
You can direct Sasha never to utter anothe racist work at work if you wish. I’m not sure you can discipline her otherwise until and unless she actually does something.
Why does Sasha, who is doing her job in a more competent way than Emily, less worthy of continued employment than Emily, who is visibly using work time and possibly resources for non-work related purposes. She’s not paid to be an activist; she’s paid to bring in new business and retain old business, and has not ben doin gthe latter for three months.
HMS, when I ask why you get to police Sasha’s thoughts, I meant by what moral authority. The fact that you have the power to do it is not at issue. If Sasha’s public behavior conforms to ethical norms, why should her
I’m not claiming moral authority. You’ve given me positional authority. If I’ve got the chance, I’ll screw over a racist and empower the victims of racism. Beyond that, we’re just talking about whether racism is bad, and I don’t think there’s any interesting conversation to be had there.
While I don’t like Sasha’s personal beliefs as long she keeps them to herself and it doesn’t impact others, she’s the best worker.
If there ever is a complaint about her alleging racism, I won’t have to do a lot of investigating and listening to denials. I sack people for their performance/behavior, not their beliefs.
Cote gets a stay of execution but it would be worth having a quiet chat and letting her know she was close to being let go.
Fire Emily. Sasha’s a racist, probably not a very nice person, and not somebody I’d socialize with, but she does her job and apparently doesn’t let her racist views reflect her performance. Cote (I have no idea how to do the diacritical) is objectively doing really bad, but she’s still dealing with her wife’s death, and I’m not going to fire somebody because of that. Encourage her to stick with the counseling, though and hope it works. Emily’s the only one who’s choosing to make her workplace a place where she does non-work stuff, and she’s continued to do so after you’ve counseled her about it.
Fire Emily. provide EAP to Cote, and have a chat with Sascha about her personal views. They may not be affecting her work life, but she expressed them on the premises. There should never be a repeat of this. She also needs to know that if her views ever do have any impact on her work, she is out. Zero tolerance.