advice about letting a new employee go (during review period)

[Anonymous]

hello! this is a hard one for me. i work in a social services non-profit organization. i have an employee who is just not working out for a variety of reasons. if it were just one reason, i would make an effort to work with her. unfortunately, she just doesn't have the kinds of skills we need in the position or in the department as a whole. her educational background is right in line with what we were looking for. her interviews were fantastic. her references were solid, but "on the ground" she just seems flummoxed and overwhelmed. i've given a variety of tasks, just to gauge her strengths and weaknesses and all i am seeing are weaknesses. her work products consistently fall short of expectations and they frequently come in overdue. the position is not entry level but she seems to have brought entry level skills in with her. as a non-profit, we watch every penny and her salary is frankly too high for me not be able to get bang for buck.

the hard part is that she is a really lovely person. as a social services non-profit, we are all in it as a labor of love to some extent, and she is really committed to the mission. i think she will be essentially heartbroken, not to mention i am sure it will cause financial hardship for her. she seems to be trying hard and i know she wants to work here and do well. but i am too busy to hold her hand and know from prior experience with coworkers in the position that i will be able to find someone who can perform the way i need them to.

any and all advice about how to proceed. i feel like i need a push to let her go. and then i need advice on what to say, as i have never let anyone go before, much less a very nice, committed person.

[Anonymous]

Have you provided any coaching or feedback on her performance? Have you let her know where she is not meeting your expectations so that she can try to rectify the situation? Have you clearly outlined was is expected in the position? IMHO it is your responsibility as a manager to do these things. If you have not, then you really need to do some of these things before giving the woman the axe.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it is poor management t to fire her without giving her warnings and further training.

[Anonymous]

You could give her six mo ths to improve, have a frank discussion, and say we will reevaluate at six mo ths. That gives her time to find another job, tho in this market she might not, in time. At the six months mark you should still give her at least a months notice.

Firing her a raptly could come back to bite you in the ass, as nonprofit communities are often small. No telling. Where she will be ten yea from now. You d t want to create an enemy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it is poor management t to fire her without giving her warnings and further training.

I have to agree with this. Yes, something isn't meshing with her employment, but the biggest problems you describe are mostly you, not her. You want to fire her but you haven't sat down and talked to her about why her impressive interview, similar values, apparent willingness to make the job work out, etc. aren't translating into the employee you'd expected? Your post reads like a management issue, not an employee issue.

[Anonymous]

The other posters are being ridiculous. Her work is not up to par and she turns it in late. She needs to go. It won't work out and you will spend months being frustrated. Let her know this week that your organization might be downsizing to due finances and her job is not secure.

[Anonymous]

I do feel an attempt to fix things before firing her is only fair. That said, if she no cut it, axe

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it is poor management t to fire her without giving her warnings and further training.

I disagree if the reason the employee is doing poorly is because she lacks the basic skills for the job. It is one thing to give warnings and extra training to help a person get up to speed on how we do things at organization x, but it is not a manager's job to teach the basic skill set needed for the job. OP, if you are in the DC area and have not given this person an employment contract, then the employee is an "at-will" employee. This means the employee can be fired at your will (for non-discriminatory reasons) at any time. I mention this because too often I have had clients feel pressure to fire someone during the 3 month trial period because they thought they would be out of options after that period of time. If you think this employee can turn it around, it is to your benefit to try and coach her to success. If she just lacks the skills needed for the job, cut your loses.

If you decide to fire her, the termination meeting should not be a discussion. You are there to inform her of a decision that has been made. It is not a review session. The decision has been made. I guarantee you that there is nothing you can say to convince a person that they are being fairly terminated if the person thinks they are doing well or can improve.
If you have any belief that the employee can improve, coach her now. But once the decision to terminate has been made, there should be no discussion about what she could do better.

[Anonymous]

I am in the nonprofit world, and I disagree with pps who suggest you owe her more chances. I think part of acting as a good steward for a public charity is to be, well, ruthless when it comes to the proper deployment of resources, and that includes staffing. Your org and mission deserve people who are not only committed to the mission--which is great--but who can actually do the job they are hired to do. She clearly cannot.

[Anonymous]

Skills can be learned. She deserves fair warning and a chance to improve.

[Anonymous]

HR bitch here: Shall we assume you have no real HR department or person, and that you are the de facto HR? I will assume that until you say otherwise. First, check with your legal department/person that you are free and clear to fire her.
Second, you either fire her right before lunch (so she can head out and it will just look to others that she's going to lunch) or at the end of the day, like at 4pm (so it looks like she's going home - this is the humane way to do it). Best not to do it on a Monday morning. Have a witness with you. I have fired close to one hundred people, and it's never been by myself. If it will be needed, have a box or sturdy bag on hand to give so she can pack her personal items.
Third, sort out with your Legal what you will say about why you are firing her, and whether or not you will challenge her application for unemployment. When I have known my company won't, I have sometimes firmly encouraged the people being fired to apply for it right away.
Fourth, close the door, close the windows. If you can pull her aside when everyone else is in a meeting, that would be good timing.
Fifth, just do it. Sorry for the Nike reference. Without knowing details I would focus on the fact that you said she consistently blows deadlines. You can tell her that on paper she's great, but the skill you expected to get from her based on her resume are just not there, and unfortunately, as a non-profit you can't justify the salary to the board without the job performance. If you can, offer to be a good reference for her. It sounds like this just isn't a good fit, so maybe she'd do better somewhere else. If you can suss out where that would be, (what field), you can tell her that.

Firing people sucks. Medically it's been proven to be more stressful than being fired (which sounds backwards). Have tissues ready to offer. Have a clear plan to get her out of the office immediately after being fired.

As others have said, if you can do a warning first, that would be best. But six months is WAY too long in the non-profit world. If you could give her until the end of July, that would be great. If you were doing that, you'd give your warning tomorrow, Monday, with a concrete list of things she must improve to keep her job.

[Anonymous]

Are you sure you are communicating clearly? For example, are these deadlines clear or just expected? Do you say, we need this by June 15 and she turns it in a week later? Or do you not give clear dates but feel she just takes too long?

[Anonymous]

thanks for the replies, everyone. i am, of course, giving her feedback. i've returned most of her assignments with comments and revised, re-submit deadlines. one of things that has me worried in particular is that not one assignment, and i've purposefully given her a wide variety, has come in at the level i was hoping for (and at the level that others in her position seem to have no trouble with). or i guess a better way of putting it, at a level that i can work with. this is a resource poor environment and i just don't have the time to both walk her through every little thing AND have to do her work myself because she is so slow at getting her assignments completed.

as a concrete example, but without going into specific detail about our work, we need folks in this role to have facility with the entire Microsoft suite of software at the intermediate level. in my experience, you can get someone from intermediate to advanced over time and without too much trouble. this person did not know how to insert a page number or center a title in Word. we do a fair bit of work in Excel, though nothing too too complex. still, she turned in a spreadsheet for a basic assignment (think three columns, where two must add to the third) where the calculations were done BY HAND outside of Excel with a calculator because she either doesn't know or doesn't realize how to use formulas.

this is the kind of thing that i just don't have time to work with. but she comes with a master's from a top tier school and a few years work experience.

[Anonymous]

NP here. Can't you just assign someone else to help her with these things? Like tell her to go to "Suzie" if you have questions about Microsoft. Also, giving her stuff back to have her fix and setting a new deadline isn't letting her know what's wrong. She might just think that is the way things are done.

It wouldn't be right to just fire her out of the blue. Perhaps she can be transferred or assign someone to help her out to get up to speed on how things are done in the office. It sound like she is a nice person, give her a chance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:thanks for the replies, everyone. i am, of course, giving her feedback. i've returned most of her assignments with comments and revised, re-submit deadlines. one of things that has me worried in particular is that not one assignment, and i've purposefully given her a wide variety, has come in at the level i was hoping for (and at the level that others in her position seem to have no trouble with). or i guess a better way of putting it, at a level that i can work with. this is a resource poor environment and i just don't have the time to both walk her through every little thing AND have to do her work myself because she is so slow at getting her assignments completed.

as a concrete example, but without going into specific detail about our work, we need folks in this role to have facility with the entire Microsoft suite of software at the intermediate level. in my experience, you can get someone from intermediate to advanced over time and without too much trouble. this person did not know how to insert a page number or center a title in Word. we do a fair bit of work in Excel, though nothing too too complex. still, she turned in a spreadsheet for a basic assignment (think three columns, where two must add to the third) where the calculations were done BY HAND outside of Excel with a calculator because she either doesn't know or doesn't realize how to use formulas.

this is the kind of thing that i just don't have time to work with. but she comes with a master's from a top tier school and a few years work experience.

HR bitch here: if you can, I'd meet with her tomorrow, give her the deadline of two Mondays from tomorrow or end of July, and as I said before specific goals she must meet to retain her position. One of which would be getting to an intermmediate/advanced level in all MS programs. It's on HER to figure out what that is specifically and to get there on her own non-work time. It just goes to show that brand name schools don't mean everything, you know?