I recently had a very interesting discussion with someone in which the topic of “dead wood” came up. I think I even raised it. This is the issue of staff — and here I’m mostly talking about professional staff, although it can cover virtually anyone — who believe that simply showing up to warm a chair is sufficient to collect one’s paycheck. We’ve all experienced them — certainly those of us who work in public organizations. Unions may provide a lot of protection against evil labor practices, but it seems in so doing they can also provide protection from reasonable labor practices, such as letting go those unwilling to perform the jobs for which they were hired.
Long ago I went on record as saying the most important management decision is whom to hire. I stand by that column that I wrote nearly 14 years ago as being as true now as it was then — or, indeed, as it ever was. Once you hire someone — particularly in the public sector — it can be very difficult, or even impossible, to let them go.
But sometimes, you must. I had my own trial by fire as a library assistant at an academic library. I ran the library during the evenings and weekends, and managed a number of student assistants. Over time it become clear to me and to my boss that someone needed to be fired. I would normally have said that this was the hardest thing I ever did in my line of work, but it isn’t.
One night I had to call my staff into a room, one by one, and let them know that someone we had worked with closely on a daily basis had committed suicide. This same fact had been told to me over a public desk almost as if I had known it already. I vowed then and there to never do that to those whom reported to me, and so as gently as I could, I called them aside in private and spent a few moments with each of them as we came to terms with the news, as others who were as yet ignorant or had already been told soldiered on keeping the library open. There were tears, and hugs, and time spent to individually gather our will.
So yes, that was the most difficult management situation I’ve been in, but it wasn’t a decision. The most difficult decision was the decision to fire a staff member — even a student assistant. I won’t try to say this is in any way analogous to firing a long-standing staff member. That must truly be horrible, and would certainly require a longer period of documenting the individual’s inability to do the job than I had to marshall. But at some point you need to sit down in front of them and let them know that they didn’t make the grade. And that sucks.
But it must be done if we are to make progress. It is when we shirk this duty as managers that we fail our organizations — and perhaps more importantly, the staff whom we value for their hard work and dedication. Because they see, and know. If dead wood is allowed to stick around and accumulate, you can be certain that your stars will seek employment elsewhere.
About Roy Tennant
“Unions may provide a lot of protection against evil labor practices, but it seems in so doing they can also provide protection from reasonable labor practices, such as letting go those unwilling to perform the jobs for which they were hired.”
Here’s the problem, though. The jobs people were hired for are not the same any more, and Civil Service and/or Unions often give people who were hired years ago a way to refuse to change because the tasks now necessary no longer fit within the official job description. I’ve been in many a situation where I’ve been told point blank by library staff members that I can train them on new functions and skills all I want, but they just aren’t going to do it. And there’s not much to do about it but wait for them to retire. Forget that the old job description no longer fits the realities of the library… that’s what they were hired to do, and anything else is out of the question. It’s so crazy, since I can’t think of many other industries where refusing to perform tasks you boss asks you to do won’t get you fired.
That said, you’re right. Hiring the right people is the most important thing. In my mind, that means hiring people who are less likely to become dead wood eventually because they are willing to change and won’t hide behind outdated job descriptions.
Exellent point, Emily, and one that I glossed over. However, in my defense, I would say that “the job for which they were hired” isn’t, and shouldn’t, be understood as being limited to a specific job description in time. I worked at the University of California, Berkeley for a number of years and I can’t even remember how many different job descriptions I had — certainly more than 3. “The job for which you are hired” is to be the best asset you can to the organization that hired you.
As anyone who has managed staff knows, people bring individual strengths and weaknesses to a position and it is extremely rare to find an individual who can actually perform all the roles a given job description describes. Rather, you often will find yourself as a manager drawing upon the talents and expertise of other staff to do roles formerly assigned to a different job description and vice versa. Having that flexibility is essential — both to maximize the benefit of an employee to an organization as well as having satisfied, engaged employees.
Firing incompetent staff in libraries can be done and has been done, but it takes agreement and the courage to support the decision all the way to the top of the organization. Particularly, middle managers need to feel supported in seeking that agreement. They shouldn’t be made to fear that they will be branded a failure by acknowledging they have a problem on their staff that they couldn’t fix. A supervisor who doesn’t have the support of their administration and HR person is really stuck.
It IS hard, but easier if the person in question has been given one or more explicit notifications (warnings, discussions, opportunities) to upgrade poor performance. A firing that comes out of the blue is much more difficult (for everyone) than one that the employee should be aware is a possibility. Isn’t that what one function of the performance evaluations?
Anna, definitely, but I also think that is a reason why it doesn’t tend to happen. It can be a tremendous amount of work to document poor performance, set goals at performance evaluations, and evaluate performance based on those goals through successive evaluation periods. Many managers decide to just provide a passing evaluation and be done with it rather than to take on the work required to a) make the employee as effective as they can be or b) perform the due diligence required before letting someone go. Sad but true.
I’ve had to let go of staff before. Some of them weren’t even terrible staff, but in reconfiguring the group I had to consider what would make the best team going forward. Yes it’s not easy firing anyone. But the purpose of documentation is to show that as supervisors/managers that we’ve been engaged with the employee in a consistent manner to set expectations and have made attempts to help them improve the quality of their work. There is true dead wood. and then there are also employees who could be good ones but need help to get there.
Michelle, good point. Firing is the very last stage of what should be a long process that attempts to engage the employee and set clear goals that can reasonably be met, while providing the employee with the resources required to meet those goals.
What about situations where the dead wood is at or near the top?
Look for another job.
Fortunately that’s a hypothetical situation for me. : )