The sad reality of "damaged goods"

While every hiring situation poses some risk for the small business owner, if you allow a "kind heart" to influence your hiring decisions, you may find yourself with a counterproductive situation on your hands.
While it's always tempting, as the business owner, to think you might be able to help someone, in a small firm there are rarely the supports or resources to deal with potential outcomes. Sometimes, people who have been through job re-entry programs are really ordinary people just needing a fresh start. But, sometimes, they are people who have been so heavily damaged by past life experiences that there is probably nothing you can do for them.

This turned out to be true for someone I hired years ago named Kathy. Kathy was a white female in her mid-40s, she had had some work experience and had recently completed a job re-entry program. She was reasonably articulate and answered questions well at the interview. It seemed obvious to me, that there was some  intelligence there and, since the job we had was strictly basic entry-level, I decided to hire her.

Sadly, Kathy didn't work out well. She performed well enough when I was in the office but, as soon as I left (which was a frequent requirement) she behaved very badly. She swore loudly, including to people on the phone, and often slammed the phone receiver down and was otherwise abusive with company property.

Around this time, I had planned  a vacation out of the office - always a high risk situation for a small business owner! - and, when I came back, I brought all my staff a very small gift. I had been in India where all manner of very intricate work is available at a very reasonable price. So I bought everyone a small metal box with some tooling and inlay work. Most people thanked me for their gift but Kathy exclaimed: "No-one has ever given me anything before!"

However, this wasn't enough to inspire better performance from her.One of my office staff also told me around this time that, for Christmas, Kathy and her boyfriend were going to spend the day at a rifle range, practicing their shooting. This did strike us all as a rather unfortunate way to spend the holiday.

Due to the problems with her performance, when I wasn't around, and the slamming down of the phone, I eventually let her go.We did give her a good eight weeks trial before this occurred. However, when clearing out her desk after she left, one of my staff found a note Kathy had written and brought it to me. The note simply said:  Why was I born?

I hope that one day Kathy found the right environment, where a combination of  continual supervision and encouragement was available, to help her turn her life around. 

But this does illustrate why "humanitarian hiring" is possibly not the best option for smaller businesses.

Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer

She'll Definitely Start - One of These Days...

You may think that, by the time you offer someone a job and they accept, that they will begin to get their affairs in order, so they can start on time.When you manage a smaller company,  everybody counts and to have someone not show up as agreed can leave you scrambling.

This happened to me a few years ago. I had offered the job of Project Coordinator to someone we'll call Cathy. Cathy had seemed.very enthusiastic about the job during the interview - but, then again, so does just about everyone. We had agreed she would start on the first of the month following.

Three days before Cathy's start date, she phoned up and asked if she could start one day later, so she could finish up a project for her current employer.  Naturally, I felt quite put out about this but wasn't sure, legally, what my position should be. Could I simply withdraw the job offer? Could I tell her, either she started as agreed or she would forfeit the position? As I wasn't sure - and it was only one day - with some reluctance, I agreed.

While Cathy did show up on the second of month, I was right to have heard a lot warning bells ringing. For one thing, she had trouble meeting deadlines (no wonder she didn't have the project done on time at her former position).  For another, her concept of productivity was way out of line with what we needed in our environment. Not surprisingly, after about six weeks, I had to let her go. We were falling too far behind on too many client commitments.

To complicate matters, Cathy had been referred to the company by one of our existing staff, Ann. Although Ann had made no guarantees about Cathy's potential, she felt somewhat responsible for having made the suggestion. I told Ann not to bother herself about it.  She also had the uncomfortable experience of having to regularly meet with Cathy at yoga class. However, Ann later told me that Cathy seemd more embarrassed about the experience than Ann herself did.

What this suggests to other smaller employers or new entrepreneurs is that you need to know the law in terms of both offering jobs AND withdrawing them. Plus, sometimes, a small environment may not be the best environment for people to refer friends and relatives. In a large company, there will be a lot of distance between the person making the referral and the new hire, but in a smaller company, where everyone is on top of one another, it may be better to steer clear of referrals for key positions at your firm. 

Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer