Most employees in my experience want to be useful, want to contribute, and want to get along with their colleagues. I have experienced some underperforming empl

Most employees in my experience want to be useful, want to contribute, and want to get along with their colleagues. I have experienced some underperforming employees but now as a founder of a startup with zero employees, I have no one to coach :) It is challenging to coach someone who does not care. There are people who take employment for granted, who don't seem to have a survival instinct or believe another job is just waiting for them. Trying to empathize with those who don't see the world the same way I do is an ongoing challenge; figuring out how to motivate someone requires understanding who they are which is non-trivial giving varying life experiences. I've reported an employee to HR once for some ongoing inappropriate behavior. While they recovered and our relationship recovered and went on to get a promo, in retrospect I should have talked to him 1:1 and attempted to fix it without HR.