The Dirty Little Secret of Successful Companies
boss.blogs.nytimes.com
boss.blogs.nytimes.com
No, probably not.
What I mean is that a company can seem to be a good enough fit to the prospective employee but turns out, after a period of working together, to be a poor fit from the employee's perspective. During the hiring process maybe they spotted some weak areas or got an inaccurate picture of the work culture and environment. Maybe after hiring the job is not quite what was advertised. What matters is that they decided to take the job, even though it's not an optimal fit, because the potential positives outweighed the potential negatives.
What I wonder is what's the best way to deal with this from both the employer and employee sides of the table?
Of course, I also had one manager who just completely went off on me and threatened to tear me a new one, but that's sort of indicative of why I was leaving in the first place. :)
People say that interviewing is a two way street, but I don't think that goes quite far enough. If you get a job you're not qualified for and can't do, you'll be let go quickly. If a company gets my labor by misrepresenting what they do, I see it as fair play to let them go and let them know I don't appreciate a bait and switch.
"How would you feel about flying on a plane with a pilot who is a “six?” What about the nurse who cares for your mother in the hospital? The mechanic who fixes the brakes on your car? The person who works for your insurance broker and is in charge of making sure your policies are renewed?"
More like "how would you feel knowing you were flying on a plane..." etc etc. There are people all around us operating as 5s or 6s, even in critical roles like the ones mentioned. It's probably closer to the norm than any of us like to imagine.
If medical schools are good at accepting only people who are likely to make good doctors, and at failing students who turn out not to be good enough after all, I'm not all that bothered by the prospect of being treated by someone who just barely passed. (Of course that's a big "if".)
The same goes for the OP here. How do you define that ten-point scale? If, e.g., "6" means "doing a good job, but there are other better people around" then firing your sixes may be a lousy idea: perhaps all the better people are much more expensive and you get better value from a cheaper 6; perhaps all the better people are off working for other companies; perhaps in this particular job the difference between a 6 and a 10 doesn't really matter all that much, and the cost in recruitment effort and training will outweigh the benefits of firing your 6 and getting someone better; perhaps the person currently in the job is a 6 who's working his or her ass off to turn into a 7, then an 8, then a 9, then a 10.
... Or, of course, perhaps not. The original article does specify that it's talking about people who "cannot do the job". But what sort of scale are you using where 6 means "cannot do the job"?
I think there's something badly wrong with the idea that Only The Best Will Do. Because (1) for a lot of purposes, someone who's not The Best can still be plenty good enough, and (2) there aren't enough of The Best to fill all the jobs, and (3) if enough companies start firing everyone but The Best you're left with a large number of people starving because no one is willing to employ them to do the jobs they could do perfectly adequately if employers weren't all insisting on getting The Best. Oh, and (4) guess what, these companies generally aren't keen on paying every single employee a superstar salary.
There are jobs for which you absolutely need the very best people you can get. In, for instance, a new startup, that might be all the jobs you've got. In that case, by all means insist on hiring only the best people and firing anyone who turns out not to be. But in that case, you'd better also be offering rewards commensurate to your demands.
...you could tell [that joke] no matter what the standards
of people at medical school, and no matter what the
difficulty of passing the examinations
Having everyone be more competent would be a wonderful thing, but that isn't something you can bring about just by firing all but the best.
Maybe 1-5 are people who are actively harming the company?
Sure, the "sixes" may be holding your company back, but just as likely, the "nines" and "tens" may be bailing because you're a "six".
OP sounds kinda like a high school jock rating girls in the hall, "She's a 6." But the analogy fails in one critical area: OP has the opportunity (and responsibility) to turn his "sixes" into "tens". That's his fucking job (if he wasn't a six himself). I've lost track of the number of times I've witnessed mediocre employees become great with a change of management.
That person with great references and potential you hired didn't suddenly turn into a "six". Something you or your organization did changed them. On the other hand, that disgruntled, under-performing employee didn't suddenly become great when the new manager restructured his job and paid attention to him.
Like most stories, this one has two sides. Unfortunately, we often only get to hear the boss's side because when things to wrong, no matter whose fault, he's the one left standing.
The salesman that games the incentive system or overpromises to make sales. The developer that "makes it work", but writes code so labrythine and undocumented as to make it impossible for any other developer to succeed. Or the middle manager that will sabotage other projects inside the company in order to look good in comparison.
The easy question to answer is "should you hire good employees?". The hard question to answer is "how do you determine good vs bad?" Maybe those sixes aren't trying because they're worried that any exceptional performance will be seen as a threat to a paranoid senior staff member.
For every one true 10/10 employee there are five con-artists. I'd argue the con-artists are a bigger threat than someone who's just there to punch a clock.
This article reminds me again of how the whole job process is a lot like the process one goes through with relationships. When I saw this bit - "What would your visceral response be if they quit? Relief? I think that says it all." - I realized it would fit perfectly as a relationship advice column.
I'm just curious.
In my case it's done based on the original contract, which provides for 30 days notice.
I'm not sure I'd trust some people not to have a negative reaction and try to sabotage their project.
Do you have issues with people attempting to sue for unfair dismissal?
In the case of a contractor, it's possible to simply end the engagement without the same burden of evidence or due diligence.
"Do x, y, z or else you're going to be fired."
It's effective because - as it just happens to turn out - nobody ever wants to be fired.