Fire quickly and compassionately | Hacker News Reader

Fire quickly and compassionately

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35 pointscoffeemug16 comments

Don't hire people just to test them out then throw them away.

Some people have responsibilities if your going to fire someone quickly then you have just turned their life upside down now that they can't pay for rent, food, and other bills.

I couldn't agree with your sentiment more. A great antidote to having to fire quickly, is to be better at hiring effectively (a task much easier said than done). Most of us at startups, being driven by younger people that have not had the chance to develop managerial experience, are very very bad at hiring and seeing indicators of what will make a potential employee a "good fit" (and by "good fit", I mean someone that can drive business goals, not the rampant issue I have seen of startups passing on an otherwise good candidate because they aren't a good "culture fit". Good business hiring shouldn't be a high school popularity contest).

We could all leave a lot less damage in our wake by investing some time into learning how to quickly identify good candidates.

I've managed many developers and I only ever once had to fire one, and it wasn't fast process at all because you first need to prove that they have violated a specific and clearly documented standard by which the whole team is held to, otherwise you just invited a wrongful termination suit into your workplace. People are not virtual servers, you can't just tear them down and launch replacements as needed. The key is hire carefully and mentor as needed.

Where are you located?

Many programmers on this site are in "at will" states like California and Texas. Meaning that you can be fired at any time for no particular reason.

The only time that wrongful termination comes into it is if there is evidence that you had a reason, and that reason is unlawful.

> Many programmers on this site are in "at will" states like California and Texas. Meaning that you can be fired at any time for no particular reason

I just happened to be talking to our inhouse council and brought this up.

he believes you are incorrect. There is a legal distinction between a layoff and a firing, where layoff is defined as not for cause and firing is for cause.

At will permits layoffs as you state.

However firings, even in at will states, can still get you into alot of trouble if you don't have paperwork to show that you layed out a performance improvement plan and documented all cases of the behaviour that go the employee fired.

See http://business.ca.gov/StartaBusiness/AdministeringEmployees... for confirmation of what I said, in the way that I said it.

Your inhouse council is also correct. Should it come to a lawsuit, it is supposed to be decided in the way that I described. However there is a world of difference between winning the lawsuit, and not having one. The stronger the case that you have made to the ex-employee, the less likely it is that they will find a lawyer who is willing to represent them in a lawsuit.

Despite California being at will, in order to cover yourself legally, you still need to have a documented history of a persons inability to perform in order to terminate them. If you don't, you are still opening yourself up for a wrongful termination suit.

you should check out some european termination laws if you want a laugh.

Did the author mean "fire quickly" in the sense that he should determine quickly whether a person is a good fit, or did he mean when you make the decision you should do so with some expediency? It seemed like the former, but the conclusion didn't seem to follow the premise.

Additionally, it seemed like his business was set up to avoid friction and is going to be fairly homogenous in terms of the composition of its people. I think a lot of employees would be petrified about pointing out poor direction for fear of being voted out.

Sometimes you need a little bit of friction to make the better decisions.

Author here.

I meant get the person out of the job that doesn't fit them well quickly, which involves making the decision and following through.

As for people being afraid of speaking out, that's never been a problem here. The rule is simple -- get all the arguments out in the open, but once the decision is made, everyone has to be on board. It's ok (and desirable) to have a lot of friction in the first part of the process, but is detrimental to have friction in the second part (after the decision has been made).

EDIT: also, it's extremely helpful to periodically re-evaluate things, and and debate flaws in direction. The trick is to keep it constructive (as opposed to having one person not play ball and derail development). Getting this process running smoothly is very difficult and requires a lot of trust, but once it works, it works phenomenally well.

Slight pivot to your point, but when actually firing, it should also be quick and compassionate. That is, I have seen managers who can't bring themselves to say "you are fired", instead waffling around the subject. It is much better to be direct and to the point, but compassionate. Don't leave the employee guessing.

Note comment above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6033418

I also would put some of the burden on the employee. If you're not doing your due diligence to find out about the company before you join them, you might be just as responsible for not "being a good fit".

I've double clutched on several companies after turning up negative reviews on the company, or knowing someone who worked with said manager. In all three cases, I was right to stay away and was glad I did more research on the company I was about to join.

In http://www.amazon.com/First-Break-All-The-Rules/dp/074351011... something like this is said. A manager who had been identified as being excellent said, "I've never waited too long for the right hire, or fired the wrong one too fast."

Interesting. How does RethinkDB implement compassionate firing (as in the Quora link at the end, where he could stay on the payroll for months while looking for a new job)?

I imagine it's easy for a programmer (who passed your entrance requirements) to find a decent job in a few days; not sure about others.

The body of law in HR matters is completely missing from the post. I'd argue: No post is complete without it, because the mistakes can be so costly (both in lost time/focus with lawyers as well as money.)

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