Would You Fire This Person?

Business Issues: Page (1) of 6 - 08/14/06

Would You Fire This Person? Should Claire be shown the door? Compare your response to other IT professionals'. By Esther Schindler One of the most painful tasks in being a manager is firing an employee. Nobody enjoys the experience, even if the employee clearly deserves to be booted. And it's much worse when the individual is a drag on the team rather than a complete failure; at what point do you say, "I give up. I have to get rid of this person"?

It's an age-old question, which affects IT people just as much as anybody else, and we can all learn from the way the other people handle such situations. To explore the subject, I posted messages with a hypothetical case study -- an employee whose work is below par -- on several discussion lists for IT professionals. I asked how they'd handle the situation, and then collated the results. The feedback from 55 people in all walks of the business (software development, web design, network administration) may provide you with some consensus ("wisdom" might be too strong a word) about what to do if you encounter a similar problem. Or it might help to know what options your manager is likely to consider.

I didn't look for "right" or "wrong" answers, nor did I consult with HR professionals for expert opinions. Not every boss will have such resources available, and most will make their own decisions.

It may be instructive to compare your own response to the "how would you handle this?" situation to the responses from other IT personnel. After you read the specifics of Claire the Problem Employee, decide what you would do. Come up with your own answers before you click on the "next page" link to determine how others would respond. If nothing else, it will help you determine if your solution is the most common one.

On to our story.

Claire has worked for the company for two or three years. She can occasionally do brilliant work; one out of five of her projects (or software applications, or web designs) is really remarkable. Unfortunately, one of those other five projects is "okay," and three of them are... not quite bad, but they give you the itch to say, "I could sure have done that a lot better myself."

Unfortunately, Claire is also high maintenance. She seems to be a trouble magnet, and always has an excuse for substandard or late work: her car broke down, her guinea pig needed an emergency trip to the vet, her brother just split up with his wife and she had to help with the kids. And instead of giving you a short summary of the problem and how she'll fix it ("I know this puts you in a bind, but I can get the code done by Tuesday"), she comes into your office to tell you her whole life story. Claire, you think, this is a lot more than I need to know. And in gratitude for listening, she sends you small but inappropriate gifts; this makes you uncomfortable (should you take a gift from an employee? even if it's only a $15 book you'd wished for?) but there's nothing precisely wrong with it.

People on the team like her, and she's supportive of what the company and department is doing. She can just be a bit wearing.

But recently, her work has taken a turn for the worse. The bright spots are rarer. She's never been good about meeting deadlines, but the last miss was pretty bad. And now she said something that pissed off the client (or the Big Boss) which makes you look ineffective. You're pretty steamed about the incident. Is it time to say farewell to Claire?

What do you do?

Fire her. She's not contributing to the team, and is dragging away your energy.
Have a heart-to-heart conversation with her about her declining standards. Even though you know she'll cry, and even though you've had similar conversations and they didn't work for long.
Sigh, and continue on with life. Not everyone who works for you can be the best.
Call the HR department. Let them deal with her.
Something else. What?

Which of these would affect the above decision? and if so, how?

HR Department practices (i.e. the company needs a smoking gun to prove incompetance)
Gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. (i.e. it would look bad to fire the only/other woman in the office)
Cost of replacement (i.e. it would cost twice as much to bring in someone new with equal experience)
Employee versus contractor status
Political favoritism: the VP likes Claire

If you choose to fire Claire: what exactly would you say, after, "Please come into my office. And close the door"?

In other words: assuming that none of us likes to fire an employee, we at least want some guidance about how to go about it. Those of us on the receiving end often feel that we didn't get the whole story, too. What do you leave out?

So write out the first paragraph of how you'd break the news to her.

Got your own answer in hand? It's time to compare it to what other IT managers and workers had to say.

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