You may be sat there reading this hoping for those words to be utter to you by your manager/boss so you can get out of the work situation you have found yourself in.
Or
You may be sat there hoping those words never get uttered in your direction and you heartbeat spiked when you read it.
Or
Maybe you are the boss and you are thinking of doing this to someone today, tomorrow, next week or waiting for them to put a foot wrong so you can pounce! (I hope you are not the latter type)
Those words You’re Fired can have alot of meaning behind it but today I want to talk to you about when you should and shouldn’t fire someone….
WHEN YOU SHOULD
It takes alot for someone to be fired usually. Gross misconduct, a history of not doing the job correctly or just generally not giving a flying fuck about the work they are supposed to do or the company they are in. All of these are fairly reasonable reasons to let someone go.
Oh and perhaps they just out right lied in their interviews and CV and actually didn’t go to Harvard or study in oxford briefly with Stephan Hawkins…..I am sure stories like this get made up!
WHEN YOU SHOULDN’T…..Just yet!
The past 3 months I have been focusing on why some companies retention rate with staff is absolutely awful, whether that comes from being let go or from resigning…both are usually very closely linked within the reasoning just from different perspectives.
I see it alot, employees of companies who are frustrated with the company rather than the job itself. But the company mis-interpreting it presuming that they are not happy, not doing a good job etc etc….HUGE lack of communication.
The famous saying that is “people don’t leave companies they leave managers” this could not be more true. It can be a shitstorm of brickwalls if you have a manager that just will not see what is going on, or does not want to see!
BE OPEN TO CHANGE
Business owners, directors, managers and HR listen up….you have to be open to change otherwise you are going to keep loosing great people to better companies….its time for you to become that great company with great people! It only takes three things;
- Being aware and open to changing things… something is obviously wrong if your staff are unhappy. Once this happens and values are more aligned within your company you must be prepared to let some people go and bring on the right people.
- Don’t bring in a trainer that is just like your CEO, nothing will change. Simple, bringing in someone who has the same outlook as your CEO will be the worst spend of your training budget – the CEO will feel great because she/he will be told that their staff are already doing everything perfect – he may tweak a few things to justify the fee but other than that not much will happen.
- Mix things up, shake things about and dare to actual make a difference in peoples lives outside of the workplace. Your staff are the reason you have a business, not your clients. Your account managers, sales reps, customer service people are the reason your clients are with you. If you think you are doing them a favour for giving them a job then I suspect you are someone with a high staff turnover. Figure out what your staff like to do outside of work, what does work bring them? Once you have done this you can cater to their desires so much easier and in return I promise you that you will increase retention, sales, customer satisfaction and everything in your business will be aligned.
So before you say to someone You’re Fired…. just think about everything else that is going on in your company and whether perhaps it should be “What can we do to help you” conversation instead….