What to do with an out-of-date employee

Hey everybody, Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute, this week coming to you from the beautiful island of Kauai. Here we were with a peer group this week, and one of the conversations centered around how to handle or how to have conversations with longtime employees who are either in the wrong role today, who have not stayed current with their responsibilities in terms of adding new skill sets or new knowledge, or who just don't have enough gas in the tank anymore. And you know, it's such a challenging position to be in because this is somebody who's been with you for a long time, has been loyal oftentimes. For many of you, it's somebody who's been with you since the beginning when you started your agency. And that combined with the fact that odds are you have not been very candid in terms of giving them clear feedback over the course of the years as their performance changed. In the beginning, they were probably a rockstar or they were what you needed at that size, but maybe now they haven't grown with you as your agency has grown or as times have changed. I can remember early in my career, I worked with an art director, and he was brilliant but he did everything by hand. And he had no desire ever to learn any software on a computer that would replace what he could do by hand. And over time, that meant he became obsolete. And I watched the management of that agency, it was long before I owned my own shop, I watched the management of that agency mishandle that situation. And I watched many agencies today mishandle that situation, that conversation.

So here's the deal. This is somebody that you know, somebody probably that you have great respect for, that you love, might even feel like family, and what you owe them is candor. You owe them honesty, you owe them kindness for sure and you owe them respect. But you also own and run a business. And you cannot allow an employee, just because of tenure, not perform when everybody else around them is performing. Because what happens is, when you don't move aside that person, either put them in a different role, talk to them about winding down their career, help them find a new right place, whatever it is, when you don't talk to them with candor about that, what happens is it begins to influence and pollute the rest of the agency, because the rest of your employees are looking around and they're saying, "Hey, I'm busting a hump. And Babette over here who's been here for 20 years, she comes in late, she's not really hitting her metrics," whatever the problem is, they see it and they feel like you're being unfair, that you're playing favorites and the reality is, you are. But what you're really doing is you're avoiding having a hard conversation. And unfortunately as business owners, we don't get to have that privilege of avoiding difficult conversations. It's our job to have them.

And so, I want you to start thinking about what are some paths? So, for example you could say to them, "You know what this has been a great run, but as you know, this is happening or this is happening or this is not happening. So I have some options for you when I talk to you about this because I want this to work." So option one is, "Hey, we're going to better define the metrics of your job. I haven't done a great job of really holding you accountable for doing your job. And here are the three or four metrics or deliverables that you have to do in a timely fashion. Option one is that you really reengage, you bring all your energy and all of your smarts back into the agency and you accomplish those goals." That's option one. Option two might be, "Hey, you know what? You have a specialized knowledge that we need, but we don't need it full-time anymore. And so, we would really like to move you to a contractor relationship, and we'll be your first customer, and we'll help you find other agencies or other people who need the skill set that you have. But we don't need it 40 hours a week anymore, so we have to make a change." Or the third one is depending on their age, "You know what? You have been in this business for a long time. You are at an age where you could think about retiring and we would like to help you do that. And we would love to throw a retirement party for you. And here's the severance package," and all of that sort of thing. Whatever it is, "Here's our thank you gift for all the years you gave to us." So let them have some control over the situation but there has to be a change in the situation.

You have to take control. Here's your control. I'm not going to tolerate the current situation because it's untenable, it's not fair. I am playing favorites. I am avoiding the hard conversation. So that's my part of the control. The employee's part of the control is, "Hey, we have three or four different paths that you could take, all of which have great pros in them, have some great benefits in them. Some of them are going to be more appealing to you than others but let's talk this through together. We've worked together a long time. I know we can solve this. I know we can find a solution to this, so let's help me figure out what's best for you and then let's do that." But what you can't do is you can't let them languish inside the business. You cannot let them quietly quit. And in this case, I don't even think they're quietly quitting. I think maybe they're just out of gas or their skill sets don't align with what you need anymore. But either way, a long term employee doesn't get to stay here forever just because they've stuck around. They have to add value to the business. And you as a business owner, need to hold them accountable for that, as tough as that maybe sometimes. All right?

Hopefully that's helpful, I'll see you next week.