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Ask HN: How to keep marginal employees

18 pointsby typhonicover 10 years ago
I work for an engineering company that has been in business 30 years. I have been here eight. Occasionally we let someone go who is not performing up to par, and that is probably going to happen again in the first quarter of next year. I hear comments like "His work always needs to be checked," but I believe we should have much more checking of everyone's work. I know we pay recruiting fees on the order of $10K per new hire, but we don't invest like that for training or for remediation of under-performance. I would like to come forward with ideas and knowledge that can help these co-workers become better at their jobs so that they can be retained. I am in a position to make some sacrifices and I am willing to do that if I believe it will help make my place of employment a better place. Do you have suggestions or experience with this situation?

7 comments

aNewAccount1234over 10 years ago
&quot;Dave, is there anything we can do to improve your experience as an employee? Anything we can do to help you take your skills to the next level?&quot;<p>Then listen to Dave. He probably knows his work isn&#x27;t as good as the rest of the team.<p>I worked on a team where I was Dave. The manager tried to avoid uncomfortable talks by making very indirect statements involving me, to my team. and my teammates would never, ever talk to me about my work. They all talked about it, though. Avoiding it created a _lot_ of resentment.<p>Getting laid off that team was, to date, the best thing I&#x27;ve experienced in my career. Talk to Dave. Listen to him. Practice the conversation with someone else, first.
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subrat_routover 10 years ago
I wish every senior level employee&#x2F;manager had this thought everyday at their workplace. That would make the organization stronger in long term and improve quality of product much better. If every company out there try to find the best of best which is around 10% of the pool then who will take the rest and train them to bring up to a level? It just shows the shortsightedness of the organization and profit as a short term goal.
MichaelCrawfordover 10 years ago
Quite likely you pay a lot more than $10K per new hire.<p>If you send me a link to your employer&#x27;s homepage, I&#x27;ll list it at <a href="http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.warplife.com&#x2F;jobs&#x2F;computer&#x2F;</a><p>There is no charge for this service nor will there ever be. I am quite specifically trying to do away with the practice of paying for resume submissions. Consider that a recent study found that the average recruiter &quot;reads&quot; resumes for just six seconds apiece. For that you pay tens of thousands of dollars?<p>While not strictly necessary it is quite helpful if your employer&#x27;s site has a &quot;Jobs&quot; or &quot;Careers&quot; page, as well as a &quot;Contact&quot; page.<p>If your site doesn&#x27;t explictly say where your office is located, please tell me the city, state or province if any, and country.<p>You don&#x27;t need to say that it&#x27;s from you, specifically, if you wish to remain anonymous. I get submissions from lots of people.
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brudgersover 10 years ago
For what my internet opinion is worth, find a place to work with a culture that meets your professional standards, you&#x27;re not going to create a business case in favor of professionalism that persuades your current employer.<p>Since it is already obvious that the person will be fired and yet it hasn&#x27;t happened, company culture issues perhaps run deeper than you are in a position to change...e.g. an engineering culture where it is believed that a second set of eyes on work product is not just normal professionalism.
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lognover 10 years ago
Mentors who aren&#x27;t in management and can meet regularly to go over tasks and offer one-on-one customized training.<p>Also, the mentors themselves can benefit from this in terms of people skills.
typhonicover 10 years ago
Thanks, everyone for the help. I&#x27;ll be talking to Dave and working on some of the other suggestions, too.
codeonfireover 10 years ago
Are you management, engineer, software dev? Who is telling you the person&#x27;s work needs checked?
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