One aphorism about employment that staffing owners have shared with me over the years is “Slow to hire, quick to fire.”
I’m curious as to whether the staffing community at large in fact believes so or if that is strictly the perspective of small to medium sized business owners. One reason I ask is that I came across this criticism by an apparent former employee. He/She takes us (me) to task, saying:
owner/president leaves all the hard decisions and dirty work to underlings, quick to hire, quick to layoff when business isn’t good
owner/president leaves all the hard decisions and dirty work to underlings, quick to hire, quick to layoff when business isn’t good
I posted a response on the site but for whatever reason the comment didn’t take. Here is how I responded:
Hi, this is Gregg Dourgarian, owner at Tempworks. I’m sorry you didn’t have a good experience working for us.
It’s true that we are quick to fire. I believe that organizations that dwell excessively on difficult decisions like that are only hurting the great employees that they want to retain. At the same time, I encourage candor and regular communication about performance. Did you not receive any before being let go?
I’m curious also as to what dirty work and hard decisions you are referring to. As the owner, I regularly do any of the following: 1) take customer support calls, 2) prepare fixes and enhancements to our software, 3) clean the bathroom when the maintenance people fail to.
In any case, I welcome the criticism and any follow up dialog you’d like to offer as it’s a great way to get suggestions for improvement.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s rare to see a body blow so delicately delivered that it appears to be a handshake. Well done, sir!
I have been a part of organizations that have been on both sides of this and will tell you I much prefer the slow hire/quick fire. It is much easier to remove a cancer in it’s early stages. That may sound rough unless you’ve employed or worked with one.
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I agree with quick to fire, but my experience has been (when i was an employee/branch manager in staffing) they are NOT quick to fire. As a matter of fact, I find that corporate america in general, for various reasons, is highly non-confrontational about poor employee performance/problem people in the workplace. It DOES impact your good employees to keep under performer/”problem children,” and it drags down the group and makes the top performers feel under valued. I remember once I had an employee who was always trying to push HER work off on my other staff members…a different excuse every day about why she needed them to help her with something. My regional manager wanted me to “find a way” to make it work, and it simply caused everyone a lot of grief, until she ultimately resigned. Kudos to you for making the tough call early on…your team is likely more positive for it!
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I’ve never worked for Tempworks but I’ve worked for a company like the review states “owner/president leaves all the hard decisions and dirty work to underlings, quick to hire, quick to layoff when business isn’t good”
There were those in a position of power at Company X that attempted to make many there feel like they should be thankful to have a job; treating employees like easily replaceable small cogs in the big wheel of business. In my experience with Company X, the CEO didn’t help from the top (avoiding micromanaging) and bully bosses ran rampant in a working environment that ultimately ate itself alive or spit out plenty of fresh bodies trying (high turnover). I am told by a current employee that Company X has shed a healthy amount of its toxicity at the helm and I’ve read about the owner’s recognition incentive program as well as other internal efforts to boost the company from within. Current employee enjoys the pay, benefits, carpool program, and various ways they started giving back to the employees, a happy ending with Company X but so rarely is the case.
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My daughter read this post and said that if my cleaning skills at home are any indication then i shouldn’t be bragging about it publicly…i wish to respond:
Here’s the deal with men’s bathrooms. Men love basketball, doing double pumps from 15 feet and layups, but they miss all the time and are super quick to get out of the bathroom. By the end of the day if there isn’t a maintenance person checking in regularly, you get paper all over the place. It’s really gross.
You don’t need to be great at housework to push down the stack already in the can and gather up the mass of paper around the bin.
@Greg: My boss posted a sign over the trash bin in the men’s restroom, “Looking for NBA players who can shoot from 2 feet away”. We all got the “it’s not that diffcult” message, and the mess was gone after that.
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thanks Dan. I’ll give it a try. I’m desperate.