Ask HN: The last drop and “You`re fired” When?

[dennisbalon]

I have been on top management positions for the last 13 years. No doubt one of they key responsibilities of a top manager is to fire people that became toxic or are simply are wrong for the team as soon as possible.

My question is very specific: what is that immediate red flaf that forces you to act and fire the person?

Would appreciate stories and examples. Thank you.

[beforeolives]

> what is that immediate red flaf that forces you to act and fire the person?

Immediate firing should be reserved for severe situations like breaking a law while at work, fraud, sexual harassment, physical violence etc.

For anything else like performance and personality issues, you should have a systematic way of giving feedback and working through these problems so that if you ever fire anyone, it doesn't come as a surprise to them. And if you ever fire anyone for something like low performance and this is surprising to them, you as a manager haven't done your job well.

[dennisbalon]

Thanks for your reply. I have a few thing to say.

Reading your comment I realized that you are more than I connecting together the decision making part of firing someone and actual action to be made.

I was taking about red flags. Like stealing something which is found on cameras, like making a fight etc.

But I also meant such signs as: person is not able to fulfill the task in a week and you see all the signs that it wont start improving, or say someone is late to the office starting the first day and the overall communications show you that this wont improve.

I am talking about signs that you as a manager find and make the final decision and does not matter if it took you a week or a minute.

Working with people and letting them know upfront that something is wrong is a separate thing. I am strong believer that sometimes it is just waste of time.

[2rsf]

> breaking a law while at work, fraud, sexual harassment

That's execution without judgment, even a simple hearing might not be enough because the circumstance might be complex

[beforeolives]

I wasn't implying execution without judgment. What I meant was "immediate dismissal after confirming what happened". My point is that if you do any of those things you might not get a second chance at the same company. While for something like performance issues you should be given feedback and opportunities to improve instead of being immediately fired.

[dennisbalon]

Mostly agree here.

But dont you remember stories from your life when you met people that telling from all your experience would not improve on performance? Or say you dont have time to teach anyone life or work ethics?

Managers are here to save everyone time I guess. Firing very often is saving everyone time.

[dennisbalon]

Can we agree that I as the CEO and owner of the company can fire anyone without explanations but only if I fulfill my obligations of covering the pay 2 weeks upfront etc.?

Bottom line can I fire someone simply if I dont like them? Thats a question for the next Ask HN)))

[muzani]

I used to say follow your instinct, but there are a lot of situations where this has been wrong. Some people are brought up to be abrasive or hardheaded. One person we interviewed insulted the interviewer (which was grounds for an instant rejection). For some reason we hired him anyway, and he was the best performer on the team. He held some rather racist thoughts and distrust about us but after we talked it through, he was cooperative.

Another near instant firing moment was a teammate who just didn't get it. He'd put bugs in and insist they were part of the design, or that they were someone else's responsibility. He'd be completely stubborn and it would take two people explaining the situation to get him to admit fault. But this was early in the job, where he was insecure, facing a lot of trouble at home. After we made it clear that bugs are the whole team's responsibility and not one person's, he was a good core member of the team.

So those are false red flags from my end.

But you can still spot real red flags from a distance. I think there's rarely ever a "immediate" red flag. Even things like harassment and racism might not be on purpose. Firing someone for racism might actually be counterproductive. There's a touch of racism in many companies - certain races/religions get paid less and "talked down to". And some of the more privileged races (not always white) might be distrusted. Usually this can lead to a subtle culture where someone acts like an asshole because they don't want to be pushed around. But if you show them a little love and care, they can often turn out friendly and they'll usually become far less racist.

[dennisbalon]

THANK YOU for such a great reply with examples. Let me comment each point. But first of all I`d like to say that my secret suace for succesful hires and fires is: instinct + process.

1. Racist guy. Heh. I had experience working with such people, key thing here for the hiring side is to understand if that hardheadedness is sign of being just dumb or maybe overconfident beause that person in questions has actually reasons to believe he is so good?

2. Stubborn guy creating bugs. For stubborness is a big red flag. I had guys creating lots of bugs despite having the knowledge not to create. Twice in my experience serious talk did help and they became nearly perfect core team members. It`s all about our personal judgement on how much time we want to invest into all of this.

3. Immeddiate red flags. Once again, I meant different immediate red flags. Something like a day of watching the person trying to do a pull request and the way he is working with CTO comments, the way he talks to others, the way he behaives and you are like hey... I made a mistake hiring him...

[logicslave]

"as soon as possible."

You dont sound like a top manager to me

[mcrittenden]

I don't think that's an unreasonable phrase. "Hire slow, fire fast" is a well known strategy.

[dennisbalon]

Fully agree here. Firing is absolutely much more important to the health of the organization than hiring. Firing is cutting on the error opposite to continuing living with it.

[yokoprime]

That sounds very counter productive, unless you're in a business where there are no room for errors, e.g. managing a squad of hitmen

[dennisbalon]

Do you mind if you disagree.

I`ll give you an example. We had a team of devs and I guy I know has joined us as a QA team lead. They guy was really cool, very comfy to be around with etc and etc. But problem was that he never really got the job done done.

I made a mistake of trying to help him for way too long, trying to figure out better tasks, better approaches.

At the end of the day I fired him. And guess what, this showed him he finally had to start doing something that noone would be puching him towards to - he started a little firm that ourganized mountaint trips.

[beckingz]

this works well as long as you can set clear performance expectations.

If you don't know exactly what you're hiring for...

[dennisbalon]

Very food comment!

When I was saying about immediate firing I never meant you should be an idiot and have no idea why you even hired.

You can make fast actions and fire fast only if you know why are you doing that which is a result of why and what for you even hired someone.

[logicslave]

Not at top companies. Only at companies hiring sub par talent.

[killtimeatwork]

Reportedly that's how Valve operates, and they're the top of the top, at least in terms of compensation.

[dennisbalon]

I think there is a lot of legal limitations and rules in different countries. But I am talking just about a team and the wish to part with someone.

I am sure there are a looot of top companies that are hard and stricts and fire fast. At the end of the day does not matter what the reason is, it is all about performance of today and future.

[dennisbalon]

Search my name on LinkedIn and decide for yourself. You dont sound like a person ever hiring or firing in your life to me.