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Not necessarily. He says "the thought of paying someone I was forced to fire because he (or she) is incompetent burns me up inside." It's more the thought of p

Not necessarily. He says "the thought of paying someone I was forced to fire because he (or she) is incompetent burns me up inside." It's more the thought of paying someone more than you're legally required too when you know they don't deserve it.

maurycy 13y ago
The productivity does not depend alone on the worker.
brnstz 13y ago
How do you know they don't "deserve" it? There are many reasons an employee could be underperforming. It could just be a bad fit / poor communication prior to starting. If you're hired to do X and you end up doing Y (maybe the company changed directions), the employee may be "incompetent" (another loaded word) at that task, or might not be interested in that work. I'm incompetent at lots of things. It doesn't mean I am incompetent. If a business owner lets paying severance "burn [him] up inside", he's going to be pinching pennies to an early grave.
rhizome 13y ago
He does not even hint that the firing could be due to management and hiring process failures. Does he fire the people who approved the hire of a person who winds up not working out? They failed, too, and you don't want a company built upon the wood of a poisoned tree.
- rrwhite 13y ago
  I did not mean to imply that all firings are the result of employee incompetence or poor performance. Because that's clearly not true. There are often other factors that lead to a bad "fit". And yes, the first thing you should do post-firing is examine your hiring process to see if it could have been foreseen and prevented. But in some cases it does come down to someone just not having the experience, the talent or the work ethic to meet the performance required. It's those cases, especially with tech workers, where founders are apt to ask "do I really need to provide severance to HIM (or her)". Writing at $20K check to someone to walk out the door is never an easy thing to do especially at a startup where that $20K could go a long way. That's what I was addressing here.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    But in some cases it does come down to someone just not having the experience, the talent or the work ethic to meet the performance required This is all predictated on "some" cases? "On Severance (in some cases)?" From the way you describe it, some cases are those in which the employee was able to rook the entire hiring process despite their inability to do the job, but how did they get an offer in the first place? This brings up a secondary point: is "the performance required" something that changed between hiring and the decision to fire, i.e. a leadership issue? Without having illustrated these scenarios, it sounds more like "Ready, Fire, Aim," sweeping employees to the side when it turns out a little-informed guess was wrong.
    - rrwhite 13y ago
      My assertion is that you should provide severance in all cases. I chose to attack the most contentious case (poor performance) where one might think not to provide it to prove that point.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

maurycy 13y ago

The productivity does not depend alone on the worker.

brnstz 13y ago

How do you know they don't "deserve" it? There are many reasons an employee could be underperforming. It could just be a bad fit / poor communication prior to starting. If you're hired to do X and you end up doing Y (maybe the company changed directions), the employee may be "incompetent" (another loaded word) at that task, or might not be interested in that work. I'm incompetent at lots of things. It doesn't mean I am incompetent. If a business owner lets paying severance "burn [him] up inside", he's going to be pinching pennies to an early grave.

rhizome 13y ago

He does not even hint that the firing could be due to management and hiring process failures. Does he fire the people who approved the hire of a person who winds up not working out? They failed, too, and you don't want a company built upon the wood of a poisoned tree.

rrwhite 13y ago
I did not mean to imply that all firings are the result of employee incompetence or poor performance. Because that's clearly not true. There are often other factors that lead to a bad "fit". And yes, the first thing you should do post-firing is examine your hiring process to see if it could have been foreseen and prevented. But in some cases it does come down to someone just not having the experience, the talent or the work ethic to meet the performance required. It's those cases, especially with tech workers, where founders are apt to ask "do I really need to provide severance to HIM (or her)". Writing at $20K check to someone to walk out the door is never an easy thing to do especially at a startup where that $20K could go a long way. That's what I was addressing here.
- rhizome 13y ago
  But in some cases it does come down to someone just not having the experience, the talent or the work ethic to meet the performance required This is all predictated on "some" cases? "On Severance (in some cases)?" From the way you describe it, some cases are those in which the employee was able to rook the entire hiring process despite their inability to do the job, but how did they get an offer in the first place? This brings up a secondary point: is "the performance required" something that changed between hiring and the decision to fire, i.e. a leadership issue? Without having illustrated these scenarios, it sounds more like "Ready, Fire, Aim," sweeping employees to the side when it turns out a little-informed guess was wrong.
  - rrwhite 13y ago
    My assertion is that you should provide severance in all cases. I chose to attack the most contentious case (poor performance) where one might think not to provide it to prove that point.
- deleted 13y ago
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