[kenrik]

Anyone who has managed / hired people in a creative role know this to be accurate. Whenever I have hired new designers I can expect it to take A YEAR to get them up to speed. Now that may seem like a long time but even if you're an expert in your field there is still a lot of intricacies that will need to seep in over time. This can be two fold if they are customer facing positions (The ones I hire for) as there are relationships that need to be built (Who are you? where is Jon? I always deal with Jon!) Also you're not going to hand over working on "that account" that will cost you 100K if even the smallest mistake is made to "the new guy" so you end up giving them the grunt work and gradually work them up to the high profile stuff and this can take months and maybe (god forbid) they are not a good fit and will never get to that level.

All of this is why you need to make a decision really fast with a new hire if you're going to cut them loose. Imagine the productivity you loose (it's happend to me) when you have to let someone go after a year because they can't get to where you need them! You have to start from scratch.