You are Only as Good as Your Worst Employee
Once you establish your CorePurpose™ and CoreVals™, how will you hire, Unhire™ and evaluate to preserve these within your business? How will you bring together and set people up for success within this operational framework? You’ll do it by putting in place Core People Processes™- the hiring, unhiring™ and evaluating protocols based on CoreVals. These Core People Processes, in tandem with Core Workflows™, are major business procedures that can make or break a culture. While these practices are especially effective as you grow and add people to your roster, it is also important to have a process to remove- or unhire- employees who drag your culture down. I like to use the word unhire because it is less demeaning than the popular term “firing” that is thrown around so casually in business. Unhiring suggests a more mutually agreed act and one where the employer or hiring manager is accepting some responsibility for a hiring mistake. In this blog, we will focus on unhiring, why it is an integral part of the Core People Processes and how it benefits your team.
By following established Core People Processes, you are given the opportunity to acknowledge superior work without bias and relieve yourself from having to make judgement calls on a case-by-case basis, a method that will ultimately drain your resolve. Not wanting to enter yet another difficult conversation, you might avoid or delay unhiring an unsatisfactory employee. Letting the wrong person stay only helps that one person - and you may not even be doing them a service. Meanwhile, you harm many people, as well as your business image and prospects. The truth is, you are only as good as your worst employee.
SABRE’s CFO, Meaghan Mullgardt, mentioned in an interview for The Culture Fix® that staff also benefit from that consistency. “Having the values as a guide to hire and unhire helps people who are struggling to realize their mistakes and how they need to change, if they want to remain in their jobs.” She also notes the psychological outcomes that clear standards have on staff members who may reach a difficult crossroads: “It makes everyone more accountable because people know what is expected of them.” These CoreVal standards bring clarity to assessing good employee fits, making it easier to determine who does not want to be a part of the defined culture. Then the only questions are, should we keep them on board? Or have we completely exhausted all of those avenues and have to let them go?
We encourage you to implement the CoreScore™ to measure the degree to which your employees work in concert with your CoreVals. Take a look at the scale below which helps you rate each employee. Your Culture Czars will, of course, receive a perfect score!
Do they/would they fit all of the time? = 3
Do they/would they fit most of the time? = 2
Do they/would they fit some of the time? = 1
Do they/would they fit none of the time? = 0
Assign a red, yellow and green status to the CoreScore and it quickly becomes evident who your rock stars are (green), who may need some feedback/coaching (yellow) and who needs to be unhired (red). This process makes it really clear and validates whatever feelings you have about an individual, especially when benchmarked against a group of their peers. Once the red scoring employees are identified, it's important to give these individuals immediate feedback in a personal conversation based around CoreVals. In fact, they probably aren’t feeling comfortable in the culture anyway, because they don’t fit and won’t feel like a valued member of the group who is making a meaningful contribution.
In the early years at Waer Systems, we had a cultural misfit who was starting to drag the team down. While he wasn’t a bad performer, his negativity caused a lot of friction which caused an amazing amount of damage to morale and productivity. I decided to start the unhiring process with a discussion about our CoreVals in a closed-door meeting. I went through our CoreVals one by one, reiterating that those who were thriving were those who felt like they were a fit with our stated values. Every now and then, I would pause to let one sink in, or simply ask, “Do you feel like these values resonate with you?” Finally, to my surprise, he volunteered, “Maybe I should be looking to work elsewhere.” With relief, I quickly confirmed this sentiment, and we were able to amicably discuss his transition.
The truth is, you made the decision to hire the employee, and deciding to unhire them will become a mutually agreed upon decision when using the CoreVals as a barometer.
There is a culture that will fit them better than yours, and using the CoreScore ensures that you make the tough calls without rancor or personal bias. You may only have one team member who scores in the red, or you may have several. But once the “red” CoreScores™ are no longer a part of your team, you will notice a palpable turnaround in the group dynamic and wish you had implemented this unhiring process sooner.
Get your company to a place where there are no reds, and you’ll be free to concentrate on your business, not in your business. Wherever you look across the company, things will be going well, and people will be enjoying their work. You will now have time to do the things you’re good at that fortify, rather than drain, your energy.
Continue exploring CultureCzars.com to discover more about Core People Processes and unhiring. You can use the free The Culture Fix® Workbooks or buy The Culture Fix® book to guide your development, take a listen to our Podcast, and even sign up for upcoming workshops.