You’re the Boss Blog: Up for Discussion: Can Employees Be Rehabilitated?

She Owns It

Portraits of women entrepreneurs.

Earl Wilson/The New York Times Susan Parker: Any benefits are temporary, at best.

At a recent She Owns It business group meeting, the owners talked about the odds of rehabilitating an employee who isn’t working out. Susan Parker, who owns Bari Jay, started the discussion by explaining why she was focused on becoming better at ensuring she has the best possible employees.

In 2008, she and her sister Erica Rosenberg inherited the business — and its employees — from their father after his death. Under those circumstances, Ms. Parker explained, she did not, at least initially, have control over whether she had the right employees in the right roles.

Some of those employees had been with Bari Jay for 15 to 30 years. “You have loyalty to them,” she said. This loyalty extends even to employees who have been with the company for far shorter periods of time — to those who helped Ms. Parker and her sister during the difficult transition period. For this reason, she said, “Erica and I have really tried hard to rehabilitate people.” Ultimately, however, she said she had come to the realization: “You just can’t.”

Ms. Parker said she came to this realization — and many others — while reading “Who,” a book on hiring that her business coach recommended.

Deirdre Lord, who owns the Megawatt Hour, said she had also conducted lengthy rehabilitations throughout her career — and come to a similar conclusion. While nobody wants to be fired, she said, she has found that the person who is not working out is often relieved. “There is this sense of, ‘Oh, thank God, we can stop this charade,’” she said.

Beth Shaw, who owns YogaFit, asked a question: What do you do with an employee who is really good at the job itself but has a bad attitude? When dealing with someone who fits this description, she said, she gets tired of the defensive stance and pushback that she and other YogaFit employees confront when offering feedback or suggestions.

Ms. Lord pointed out that it sounded as if this employee was not actually good at the job.

“There has to be a cultural fit,” said Jessica Johnson, who owns Johnson Security Bureau.

“Exactly,” Ms. Lord said.

Ms. Johnson said the resistance to feedback was especially jarring given that Ms. Shaw runs a yoga company, and it was critical that yoga instructors gave feedback. “Even if that’s not your role, there’s a disconnect,” she said. “You’re going to be schizophrenic in your job.”

Alexandra Mayzler, who owns Thinking Caps Group, said her biggest struggle was over how detailed to be when describing job requirements to a new hire. For example, is it sufficient to say timeliness is essential? “To me, that means you get there five minutes early and you’re ready and you have a few minutes to prepare yourself,” Ms. Mayzler said. “For some people, it might mean that you run in on the minute, and some people think if you’re five minutes late, you’re actually on time.”

She also said that she did not want to judge employees unfairly if the problem was her own failure to be specific when explaining job requirements. She said she wondered whether rehabilitation sometimes became necessary because the employer was not clear from the start.

“One of the reasons that I rehabilitated in the past was that I thought, ‘This person’s three months into the job, they know something already,’” Ms. Shaw said. She said another reason was that as the owner of a yoga business, she always felt it was important to “try to bring out the best in people and see the good in them.” But, she added, the values of a “spiritual mission” may not be the same ones that work in business.

Ms. Parker said she had found that any benefits from rehabilitations were temporary, at best.

“That’s what most rehabilitations are, even in relationships,” Ms. Shaw said. “They will rehabilitate, and chances are in three months, most people go back to their old behavior.”

“It’s not that they’re rehabilitated, it’s that they’re performing differently,” Ms. Johnson said.

Ms. Mayzler repeated that her biggest struggle was over whether she should expect employees to share her standards, even if she had not specifically defined the ways in which they should perform their duties.

“It’s a big communication issue, and I think it’s balance,” Ms. Johnson said. “For us, timely might be being there 15 minutes before the meeting starts, but you don’t know how somebody else interprets that, and if you don’t have that discussion. …”

“But if you hire the right person, from the beginning, they should know that,” Ms. Parker said.

“Right, that’s the question,” Ms. Mayzler said.

“Yes, they should know,” Ms. Shaw agreed.

“You shouldn’t have to explain to somebody what timeliness means,” Ms. Parker said.

“I’m not just talking about timeliness, but everything,” Ms. Mayzler said.

Ms. Parker said the book “Who” had been an eye-opener for her. She said it made her realize, “If I hired the right person, I wouldn’t have to micromanage, and I wouldn’t have to explain everything.”

This discussion will continue in our next post. In the meantime, what has been your experience with attempts to rehabilitate employees?

You can follow Adriana Gardella on Twitter.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/up-for-discussion-can-employees-be-rehabilitated/?partner=rss&emc=rss