The Need to Give Chances to Employees Who Failed to Deliver
If you have a culture of firing people at work after a poor performance, it’s counterproductive. You might think that you’re sending a message to everyone to do a better job. The truth is that you’re telling them that it might be time to look for a better work environment. Your employees might not get the kind of workplace that helps them bring out their best. Even if they do, it’s not out of free will, but fear. Therefore, even if you have employees whom you think didn’t deliver, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to let that employee go.
Ask for an explanation first
Before you fire that employee, there might be a good reason for the failure. It’s your responsibility to ask that person first before you decide. Even if your final decision is to fire, you have at least heard the other side of the story. You can also learn from the experience and use it to avoid possible failures in the future.
The failure could be a motivating factor
Failing to achieve those goals is already enough of a punishment for that employee. It’s embarrassing to lead a team or a specific task that didn’t go well. Firing that person is already too much. You can opt to reassign that employee to a different post or reshuffle the members of the team working on a project. There are many ways to achieve the goals in the future, and firing someone isn’t always the best path.
You don’t want to go through the process again
If you decide to let go of an employee, the next step is to hire someone to fill that vacant post. The problem is that you might not find the right person for the job. Worse, you have to train that person first before the tasks can move ahead. There’s even a chance that you won’t hire the right person, and the results could be worse than what happened before. You would rather retrain an existing employee than find someone else.
Some failures might be unforgivable
Although you have to try your best to accommodate that employee, it’s not applicable at all times. There are mistakes that may warrant firing especially if it involves an illegal act. It won’t only endanger the company’s finances, it could also lead to a reputation problem- something the company may never recover from.
Send the right message
Regardless of the outcome of the project, you need to speak with your entire team for evaluation. The goal is to identify what went wrong and not to blame a specific person who caused the problem. You can use what you learned from the evaluation to do better next time. You’re also sending a message to the employees that they have to try hard to achieve their goals. They don’t need to live in fear while working as it could adversely impact that quality of their work.
Photo Attribution:
1st and featured image from https://blog.im.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/fired-from-job.jpg
2nd image from https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/evan-thompson/how-to-fire-employee_b_12116346.html
