Major Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 American Soldiers and wounded another 30 at Fort Hood recently.  People are debating whether he should have been fired long before shooting anyone.  Could your firm have workers that should be let go?

USA Today reports that doctors managing Hasan's medical training repeatedly voiced concerns over his strident views on Islam and his inappropriate behavior, yet here is the problem that may be occurring at your company:  Everyone continued to give him positive performance evaluations.

Why?

Hasan's behavior was totally inappropriate for an Army psychiatrist, but hindsight is always 20-20.  What about your company?  Do you have employees who are doing the job, but demonstrate behaviors or values that clearly conflict with their job?  Are they:

• Constantly late

• Do not regularly follow-through

• Rude and/or impatient with customers

• Rude and/or impatient with co-workers

• Not meeting your quality standards

• Not achieving your quantity standards

• Not... anything regularly

So what can you do?

1. Document their performance against goals, company policies and values instead of giving them verbal warnings which are not recognized in a court of law.

2. Give them a comprehensive, yet quick (20-30 minutes to write it) performance review for 2009.

3. If after 90 days of documenting their performance, fire them.  Or if you already have written or online documentation of their performance you can fire them now.  Why wait?

Often times the best solution for them as well as your company is to just let them go.

BOTTOM LINE:  Great employees can be hard to retain unless you are properly, but less effective employees seem to stay forever when you have not automated employee accountability.  Get them engaged or show them the door.  Let me know if you have any questions.

MEETING IDEAS

Ft. Hood at Your Company is about operating your business professionally so employees are fully engaged and people are held accountable for results.

Here are some ideas for discussion during your next management (not staff) meeting to consider how you and your people can choose to recognize people for their contributions and hold people accountable for results.

1.      What are the top three actions our people take that grows our business?  (Maybe discuss this per department.)

2.      What are our company standards for these actions?

3.      Who is meeting or exceeding these standards and how?

4.      What can be done to recognize the performance of the people who are meeting our standards?

5.      Who is not meeting or exceeding these standards and how?

6.      What can be done to improve the performance of the people who are not meeting our standards?

BOTTOM LINE:  The quest to fully engage employees is a never-ending journey.  If you have people wandering from your path then free them to pursue the next step in their career.