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Hiring and firing bad people manifests itself as additional chaos to the others who are trying to get their work done. For those in the trenches, those doing th

Hiring and firing bad people manifests itself as additional chaos to the others who are trying to get their work done. For those in the trenches, those doing the firing will have already lost credibility for hiring the bad people in the first place.

pw0ncakes 16y ago
It depends on the circumstance. In a small startup, it's going to be a given that a certain fraction of the people you bring on are inappropriate for the company, and that you can't predict this in advance. Fire them, before they do too much damage to the codebase, morale, et cetera. In a larger company, firing is much more of a last resort, because people can always be moved around, and because if the only problem is that they aren't producing, it's probably because they weren't mentored and this can be rectified-- large companies usually have enough time and resources that they shouldn't need to fire many people, except when things are so bad that layoffs are necessary.
- starkfist 16y ago
  Indeed. I should clarify that. If you're in a very small startup, let's say 0-30 people, the chances are that most people working there have some say in the hiring process. If someone his hired and doesn't work out, most are on the same page about what's going on. Once a company gets to the point where people are being hired and fired by managers, churn becomes an additional chaos factor that people trying to do work have to deal with.
tptacek 16y ago
I'm sure you're also right, but I'm not sure what your point is. You can't keep bad people on the team.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  But you might be able to find a way to make them an asset to your organization any way. There are many kinds of 'bad'. There is 'incompetent', but that usually comes with a specific field of competence, maybe the employee has different skills and can be given a new role where they're more productive and happy. There is 'anti-social', this is a real problem and should probably have been caught at the hiring time, a person like this is going to have a hard time being a part of any team. Then there is 'not in this team', if you have only one team then that's easy, but if you have more of them you might try a different one. There are the 'loners', people that can't work with others but have to do everything their way, these are usually better suited to become entrepreneurs themselves (I had one guy like that working for me and I helped set him up to start his own business and he actually succeeded in an amazing way). And so on. So even if you can't keep a bad person on the team there are a few more steps before you bring out the shotgun. I've literally fired exactly one person, the reason was that he was starting up a competing service and at the same time approached our customers. That was reason enough for me for an on-the-spot termination when I found out. Other than that we never had any issue that we couldn't resolve amicably or part on good terms without having to resort to firing someone outright.
- starkfist 16y ago
  My point was that it's important not to hire bad people in the first place.

pw0ncakes 16y ago

It depends on the circumstance. In a small startup, it's going to be a given that a certain fraction of the people you bring on are inappropriate for the company, and that you can't predict this in advance. Fire them, before they do too much damage to the codebase, morale, et cetera. In a larger company, firing is much more of a last resort, because people can always be moved around, and because if the only problem is that they aren't producing, it's probably because they weren't mentored and this can be rectified-- large companies usually have enough time and resources that they shouldn't need to fire many people, except when things are so bad that layoffs are necessary.

starkfist 16y ago
Indeed. I should clarify that. If you're in a very small startup, let's say 0-30 people, the chances are that most people working there have some say in the hiring process. If someone his hired and doesn't work out, most are on the same page about what's going on. Once a company gets to the point where people are being hired and fired by managers, churn becomes an additional chaos factor that people trying to do work have to deal with.

tptacek 16y ago

I'm sure you're also right, but I'm not sure what your point is. You can't keep bad people on the team.

jacquesm 16y ago
But you might be able to find a way to make them an asset to your organization any way. There are many kinds of 'bad'. There is 'incompetent', but that usually comes with a specific field of competence, maybe the employee has different skills and can be given a new role where they're more productive and happy. There is 'anti-social', this is a real problem and should probably have been caught at the hiring time, a person like this is going to have a hard time being a part of any team. Then there is 'not in this team', if you have only one team then that's easy, but if you have more of them you might try a different one. There are the 'loners', people that can't work with others but have to do everything their way, these are usually better suited to become entrepreneurs themselves (I had one guy like that working for me and I helped set him up to start his own business and he actually succeeded in an amazing way). And so on. So even if you can't keep a bad person on the team there are a few more steps before you bring out the shotgun. I've literally fired exactly one person, the reason was that he was starting up a competing service and at the same time approached our customers. That was reason enough for me for an on-the-spot termination when I found out. Other than that we never had any issue that we couldn't resolve amicably or part on good terms without having to resort to firing someone outright.
starkfist 16y ago
My point was that it's important not to hire bad people in the first place.