Is there such a thing as a bad employee?
Yes, there is.
Is there such a thing as an employee who’s just a bad fit at your company?
Yes, there is.
How do you know if you have a bad employee or just a bad fit for your company?
Ah… that’s a little trickier! Good news is I’ve got some things to share with you that I think will help you make a better decision for yourself.
But I must let you know that until you have a systematic way of doing business at your company, your employees are at risk which puts you and your company at risk.
The only fair way for an employee to be judged good or bad is to have things documented in writing that helps your employees fill the box or boxes on your Org Chart. More than that, you also need to have the associated orientation process that gets them up to speed and provides the metrics they will be judged on. This coupled with never-ending training is the only way to give an employee the ability to step up and be a good-to-great employee at your company.
Tough news here… the responsibility for them not being a bad employee or a bad fit is all on you. You need to engage Staffing Power to minimize (you can’t eliminate) the chances of having to deal with a bad employee or an employee who’s a bad fit.
Here is a brief overview of the 5 Steps to Staffing Power:
- Recruiting: Cast a big enough net so that you have more applicants for hire than you need. This way you can do a better job of screening them and be more selective. One consulting client told me after we did Staffing Power, “If you want a great apple pie, it pays to shop for great apples.”
- Hiring: If you’re growing (and you should be), you’ll always need to be proactively hiring so you avoid being desperate because you’ll tend to lower your standards. Make them talk to you. See if they have good questions about the position. And absolutely have both a written test and a hands on test for each position both for inside personnel and outside personnel.
- Orienting: It’s tempting to shortcut this step… but… don’t! If you do, you do so at your own peril and to their detriment. There’s only one chance to get them out of the gate and up to speed on how to comply with your policies and procedures. It’s also your best chance to get them to feel a part of a “good family” at work by making them as successful as you can as quickly as you can.
- Training: Training never stops. Even if they’re “experienced” that doesn’t mean the work doesn’t change. It will always be evolving as to what and how we do our work. You have to train them on the skills it takes to be really good, if not great, at the position they’re on your Org Chart today as well as providing the necessary training so they can move up and have a career with your company vs. just a job.
- Retaining: It’s never taking for granted that they’re in and buying in. They need to know why they do what they do for customers, company, and themselves. They need to know every day they made the right decision to join your company. And they need to know you’re making good on the promises you made when they joined the company.
So, if you have all this, it’s easier to determine if they’re a bad employee or a bad fit. If you don’t. it’ll be tougher.
Here are 5 ways to better identify them as a bad employee:
- They lie, cheat, or steal.
- They blatantly violate your policies and procedures over and over after they’ve been trained on them.
- They create problems with pretty much all of the customers they interact with and their fellow employees.
- They are insubordinate to you, the owner, and/or their managers and are especially doing this in front of others.
- They continually miss the key performance indicators you’ve trained them on.
If they're a bad employee, click here to learn The Right Way to Say Goodby to a Bad Employee.
Here are 5 ways to better identify them as a bad fit for your company:
- They are trained by you, but they still lack the capacity or willingness to master the skills you train them on. Sometimes, it’s because they oversold themselves in the hiring process and now that is becoming more apparent.
- They don’t like to do things the way the company requires them to do it. The reason is they want things to change to better fit them. One example is they might not dress up to company standards – this is even after they knew that dressing to company standards was non-negotiable. The primary reason they do things like this is they don’t care enough that it’s being done to better serve the customer and the company.
- They don’t want to be available for overtime as they prioritize other things or, worse, another job they may be working at. That doesn’t make them bad people, but it’s not a good fit.
- They are unwilling to help others get their work done or work as a group when called upon to do so. In other words, they don’t play well with others.
- They don’t like the way you pay or your reward system (if you have one), and they don’t see why they’re not at a higher level on your Org Chart (if you have one) even though they have not earned that right to ascend.
Want to get really good at this? I’ve got more help coming as I share more.