Transcription
When it is time to finally fire an employee, well, and how to fire correctly, be sure to watch this video to the end, because at the end I will tell you a 100% sure sign when you need to start firing an employee. General observations regarding dismissal are as follows: business owners and managers, as a rule, fire employees too late. We tolerate, we suffer, we observe, "just a little bit more, let's give another chance, let's see," and so on. The employee is not fired until, finally, the cup of patience, for some reason, overflows, and the manager or owner, with great confidence, proceeds to fire him. Ultimately, solving this problem always brings the same thought: "Damn it, why did I tolerate all this? Why did it last so long? Why didn't I do this sooner? What a fool I am, how much time I've lost." This is how it happens if we don't fire on time. A whole bunch of consequences arise, a whole bunch of consequences. First, if we don't fire a person who is clearly not suitable for this job, and pay attention, I'm not saying the person is bad, I'm saying he's just not suitable for this job. You can understand that he is not suitable for this job by only one sign: he is no longer coping. He is not coping with some work. That's it, he occupies a place. This is the first problem. And until you remove this person from this place, this place will not become vacant. And this means that no luck, nothing will save you, and no one will come to this place because it is simply occupied. This is the first problem. The next problem is that a person, being in this workplace, does not solve tasks. Well, for something he is needed. He is needed to do advertising, or to close contracts, or to keep some reports, and simply this work itself is not done. It's like a snowball in the business process of the company. It creates other problems. He cannot do advertising, salespeople cannot sell. If he is responsible for sales, deals are not closed, we have no money, and so on. Then this creates a problem for the entire company. The longer he stays, the longer this problem continues to exist, and somehow it needs to be solved. "Listen, where are you disappearing to? You're running around the entire building. Work is stuck, work is stopped, Ashraf will come." The next problem that arises when you don't fire a person on time is that you simply stupidly waste time on him. As a manager, you understand that you have to spend time on any employee. And, as a rule, as experience shows, the worse a person works, the more time the manager has to spend on it, trying to help him, trying to get some results from him, maybe to improve his competence, to do something else. That is, the longer he stays in this place, the more valuable time of the manager you burn. If you believe in Buddhist theory, you committed many bad things in your past lives, perhaps you were even Hitler, otherwise I don't understand what I have, like you. Well, and the last in this list, but perhaps not the last in importance, is that as long as this person is in this place, unable to perform his duties, and you, as a manager, have to get results from him, you have emotional problems, emotional losses, because as a result, you are not coping with the work, you are worried, you have stress, you have disappointment. And this emotional state spreads not only to this specific person, but to your overall emotional state, which affects everything you do. Of course, as a result, your company suffers. Therefore, it is important to fire, to fire quickly. What are the signs, in what situations should you fire? Well, the first situation that I have observed over many years of consulting is the following: the company's revenue is falling, and it is absolutely obvious. That is, you don't need to be a genius to assume that this revenue will not recover tomorrow and will not soar to the previous new wonderful level. No, it has fallen, and it has fallen for a long time, and it will take months, possibly many months to recover. And it is obvious that the fall in revenue does not allow us to carry out all the financing that we did before. It is obvious that some expense items need to be cut, but managers for some reason do not do this. That is, they don't take, well, let's take our staffing table. Yes, it's very painful, very offensive. We raised these people, we raised them, we trained them for a long time, we invested a lot in them, and we love them. But damn it, we can't feed them all. And this is obvious, this is just mathematics. We don't have some rich uncle in America who will send us a bag of money. And therefore, we need to rely on our income. And our income has also fallen, and prospects say that it will not recover soon. Therefore, we urgently, immediately, right today, need to cut the staffing table, fire someone. You need to understand that this needs to be done quickly because most companies start doing this when the money has already run out, and salaries are already being issued with promissory notes on behalf of the company, you understand. And you will still have to pay for them, this will create a problem for those who remain. Well, I won't bother you with my presence anymore. What money, what money did you ask me about some money? The second situation in which you need to fire an employee is when the employee is toxic, and you, as a manager, cannot cooperate with him normally, and he poisons your life, emotionally poisons you. Yes, sometimes it happens that the person himself is competent, productive, but he has such a scoundrel character or some manners that he simply poisons the life not only of those around him, but even poisons the life of the manager. The manager is simply emotionally uncomfortable dealing with him at all. I have seen such situations when a manager avoids his subordinate by all means. But here you need to understand one thing: the manager is responsible not only for the productivity and performance of one individual employee, he is responsible for the efficiency of the entire team as a whole, as a single team. And what kind of team cohesion, what kind of teamwork can we talk about when one of the team members, and only one, mocks, teases, suppresses, you understand, upsets other team members? That is, if you encounter this, the first thing you should do is quickly talk to this person and explain that such behavior is unacceptable in principle, because you have a team game, and yes, all team members should feel normal. And explain to him that you respect him as a professional, but his manners, his approaches, what he upsets other people, including you, are absolutely unacceptable in your team. He needs to make a decision: either he will behave normally, well, correctly, socially, or he will have to leave. If he agrees but continues to act the same way, fire him. If he doesn't agree, well, fire him, because the losses will be much greater than his competence. And, as a rule, such people can be replaced. The third situation is when a person lacks results. He is pleasant, nice, good, empathetic, a team player. He is absolutely not toxic. You have normal revenue. But this person, he is simply unable to fully do his job. That's it. He has no results, and you see it. You measure the results. You have metrics that show his lack of results or insufficient results. This is the main and primary reason why you need to fire a person. This is a sufficient reason. If a person is insufficiently productive, most likely you will not fire him. Very rarely are there cases when through improving competence you can increase productivity. A person is usually productive in himself, but he gives results, perhaps not as good in terms of quality, with some rough edges, but you see in him this ability, this energy. Loading coal. If he has no ability or energy, he is simply not suitable. Fire him. There are many good people who can work for you. An important point when you fire people, you need to reach an agreement. Sometimes managers, especially in those cases when they are already emotionally involved in this, upset, start to react themselves, to get angry, what we sometimes call managers make such a mistake: they say, "Vasya, you are incompetent, this is nowhere good, you have no abilities for this." That is, what does he start to do? He starts to criticize the abilities, the character of the person. Never do this. This is Pandora's box. No one will ever agree that they have a bad character or a lack of abilities, or they are not smart enough, and so on, and so on, and so on. Understand, not a single person will agree with this. Yes, and then, it's all relative. As tests show, I am a quite smart person, but can it be said that sometimes I am not smart enough? Of course, I can agree with this sometime. No, probably not. Take it all very simply. It's subjective. Don't get into this subjective area. Don't open Pandora's box. The only thing about which you can reach an agreement with an employee is concrete results, solid, understandable things. "Vasya, we expect that in this position you will close 5 deals a month. You closed three deals a month. For our company, according to our standards, this is insufficient results, given our average check, so that we can provide this workplace for the company, it simply doesn't make sense. Insufficient level of production. We have already discussed this once. The second month has passed, you still have three deals, not 5. You are a wonderful person, I am sure that this person is very talented and you can prove yourself in many areas, but these results are not suitable for you. Thank you very much for your cooperation. It ends here." You understand, only results, and only quantitative, and only solid things. This is what you should discuss with the person when firing, and then you will be able to reach an agreement with him. He will think about himself: "Well, yes, and probably I'm just not talented in this, my talent is in something else. Indeed, it didn't work out for me here." There are many reasons why it didn't work out. Never discuss the reasons with him. Never embark on this journey of discussing what prevented him. Talk only about concrete results. "We always can, I understand that life is not ideal, our company is not ideal, our approaches are not ideal, our clients are not ideal. There are many circumstances, but I am in a situation as a manager, I need at least five deals, not three. You have three, so it didn't work out with the results. I understand that it's not your fault, but that's just how it is. This is the result, and therefore we are parting with you. Like ships in the sea, we parted like ships in the sea." If you yourself think about what kind of product should be, what result I should expect from it, and so on, and you yourself have some uncertainty about how to formulate this expected result, well, come to my master class on building a strong team. The link to this master class is in the description. The master class is absolutely free, it is for managers, for business owners. Take this master class and you will understand what I am talking about. The next important point when you fire an employee, you need to understand one thing: a person, even if he worked for the company for only a week or two, he gained connections, he gained communication, he gained influence over other people, his opinion matters. And very often, business owners make such a mistake: they fire someone, often a person who has worked in the company for five years, and they don't say anything about it to the employee. But pay attention, this is a person who was fired, he continues to communicate, he continues to be in contact, he continues to meet with them in the evenings, he continues to be friends, he continues to call by phone. And he lost, but he wasn't going to be fired. You fired him, and therefore he will justify it somehow. Think about how he will justify it. He will always justify it by blaming you, blaming the company, blaming the circumstances, and all that. And even if he doesn't say it directly, he will still have this attitude, and he will still manifest this attitude. In other words, he will destroy your business, he will destroy your team. To reduce the consequences of this destruction, what you should do when you fire someone: explain to people why this happened. Just convey it, show it with numbers, spend time on it. "Here, Petya worked for us. He made three deals for two consecutive months. Our minimum is 5, because it is necessary. He made three. I respect him as a person, he is a good, talented person, but some circumstances led to the fact that he made three and not five. We, as a team, cannot afford an employee who makes three in this position, because we have rent, salaries, obligations, marketing costs, and so on. And so on. This is the only reason why he is fired." If the reason is different, for example, you fired him because he is toxic, he simply poisoned your life and poisoned the lives of other employees, you convey this to your team in the same way and say: "Guys, he is a good specialist, a good expert, this is true. I always valued him for this, but he poisoned life with his jokes, people were upset, an unhealthy emotional state, and so on. I cannot allow this. I cannot allow us as a team to be upset at any unexpected moment, because upset people make mistakes themselves, productivity decreases, the atmosphere worsens." That is, the key point here is this: every time you fire someone, honestly, openly, and directly explain why this happened, so that there are no speculations, and so that the information that your employees will receive from the other side of the barricades, let's say, if it is intended to criticize, if its intention is to criticize the company, then it will significantly weaken this opportunity to criticize. Well, and the main question, I promised to answer it: how to determine the sign that it's time to fire? It's very simple. My experience shows, my observations say that if the idea came to the manager or business owner, "What if I fire Petya?", then in 99 percent of cases, it means that he should have been fired long ago. Why? Everything is very simple. Pay attention, if this idea has come to your mind regarding certain employees, pay attention. Regarding other employees, it never comes to your mind. The idea never comes to your mind: "What if I should fire Masha?" Well, if Masha is a very valuable employee for you, she makes great sales. On the contrary, sometimes the idea arises: "Oh, damn it, if Masha leaves, what will we do?" This is a problem. Therefore, if the idea has come to your mind: "Should I keep him, or maybe fire him?", then in 99 percent of cases, he should have been fired long ago. Just look at it honestly and do what you should have done long ago. I personally have had such situations often in my life, and I don't want it to happen to you with all the negative consequences.