31–40 of 198 posts
1. They quickly and clearly told the employee of the problem.
2. They proposed a course of action
3. Their proposal worked (at the end they were happy with his work).
It was not pleasant for sure (for both sides, I bet), but would it be worse to say nothing and terminate him for non performance in a couple of extra months. My 2c.
I honestly think your employers have been super generous already, one ought to know what is expected of him/her and realise they shouldn't leave themselves open to criticism by abusing the trust of the employer, always be in a positive balance, put in more than you take out and make sure it gets visibility. I wouldn't keep someone who is not performing for whatever reason, because by the time I lose trust in that per…
If an employee veers off course and you wait until you're ready to terminate them before you say anything, you're a bad manager.
And it's not always them, it's sometimes you. Have you never thrived under one manager, been reshuffled and then suffered under another?
My takeaway from this is that frequent 1 to 1s are a good idea for every single employee, from the day you start to the day you leave the company. You need to use them for positive feedback as well as negative, and general chats about progress and ideas.
Many "competitive" companies use this asymmetrical conversations behind closed doors to push employees to overpromise and therefore under-deliver.
It's also very easy to manipulate employees into feeling guilty or develop impostor syndrome.
I don't know what the motivations for the bosses in this story were, but in corporate America personal improvement plans are fundamentally about gearing up to fire someone more than any actual improvement. When defending yourself against a wrongful termination lawsuit, it looks good to courts to say, "Look, we met every week, we had these conversations, and things didn't get better enough." In the story linked, it se…
Honestly to me it seems that the author was extremely unprofessional. He just disappeared for whole days without letting anyone know. In all the companies that I worked it was explicitly mentioned in the contract that such behaviour was subject to disciplinary actions up to dismissal.
If it was his non availability when expected (meetings/telecons) or missing explicitly agreed to deadlines, I agree with your non-professional label.
If he got a task to do in 3 days and delivered in 3 days he did just fine even if he was on a beach with the phone off the first day. In this case the failure is with the management who didn't know how to run a remote team (which is a rare skill, too).
that being said there have been a few put on PIP I think would be better separated. I guess from this standpoint it does serve to protect company interest.
I do know that working remote introduces all new problems, the hardest I had to learn was to not let myself be distracted and I actually ended up with a personal check list that became natural after a time. I now understand how to make sure those who get more than one WFH effectively use this privileged and keep it.
How can the author say that they don't see the point in these plans what it appears that they were able to correct their behavior and stay at the company until it went under?
"By the end, they were quite happy with my work." Looks like the author is building this whole drama out of nothing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a boss the problem is employees take up so much time. Each employee really needs at least 30 minutes of your attention per day averaged over the month (mostly just chit chat, but also mentoring and feedback) [1]. Once you have more than a couple of people to manage there goes your whole day. 1. Yes some people are fine with less, but this is the average amount of time people need. Putting in less just results in a…
...isnt managing and helping out your employees like half your job?
My takeaway from this is that frequent 1 to 1s are a good idea for every single employee, from the day you start to the day you leave the company. You need to use them for positive feedback as well as negative, and general chats about progress and ideas.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a boss the problem is employees take up so much time. Each employee really needs at least 30 minutes of your attention per day averaged over the month (mostly just chit chat, but also mentoring and feedback) [1]. Once you have more than a couple of people to manage there goes your whole day. 1. Yes some people are fine with less, but this is the average amount of time people need. Putting in less just results in a…
I believe it was Andy Grove who suggest no more than 6-8 direct reports for this reason.
Leaving aside the clear miscommunication that led to the "needs improvement" state first, it seems to me the management did just fine after that: 1. They quickly and clearly told the employee of the problem. 2. They proposed a course of action 3. Their proposal worked (at the end they were happy with his work). It was not pleasant for sure (for both sides, I bet), but would it be worse to say nothing and terminate hi…