In this episode, Chip and Gini tackle the difficult subject of firing an underperforming and problematic employee. They discuss a real-life scenario where an employee with a bad attitude refuses to do their work, causing frustration among team members.

They advise against prolonging the inevitable firing decision, suggesting that acting swiftly can alleviate overall team stress. Both hosts share insights on why Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) are largely ineffective, stressing the need for proper documentation and the guidance of an HR advisor during termination processes.

Additionally, they highlight the importance of showing proactive steps to the remaining team to mitigate the workload burden and maintain morale. The episode emphasizes the critical role of leadership in making tough decisions for the greater good of the team and the business.

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And Gini…

Gini Dietrich: I’m so excited

Chip Griffin: you’re fired.

Gini Dietrich: I knew you were going to fire me.

Chip Griffin: Maybe not, because if I fire you, then I have to just talk all by myself, so that might be too much work for me. So maybe I’ll put you on a PIP instead and we’ll just think about it and then we’ll come back and figure out if it makes sense.

No, I don’t know about that either. I just don’t know what to do.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Hmm. Well. I guess you could find a replacement. Do you have a replacement?

Chip Griffin: I don’t,

Gini Dietrich: well start there.

Chip Griffin: I don’t know that anybody else would, would wanna put up with having to do this with me every week, so that could be a problem.

Gini Dietrich: Truth be told, it is kind of fun, so people would be missing out, but I don’t wanna be fired.

Chip Griffin: Okay. Well. I’m fine. I won’t fire you. You’re unfired.

Gini Dietrich:  Okay, great. Woohoo.

Chip Griffin: So we are gonna talk about firing, but I, it’s not about firing either one of us, it’s about firing employees.

And I guess I’ll let you set this one up, but it, it’s a, a question that showed up in an online forum about an underperforming employee. I think that’s fair to say.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: And an owner trying to figure out what to do about it.

Gini Dietrich: I mean, yeah. The, the gist of it is that there’s an over an underperforming employee, with a terrible attitude who refuses to do work.

She gives it back to her manager regularly. She doesn’t share information. She hoards stuff. But my friend was like this is a problem. She needs to be fired, but we don’t have an immediate replacement and it will put her work on others. And I was like, okay. She’s already, other people are already doing her work, especially if she’s giving it back to her manager.

Other people are already doing her work. And the, the way I look about the, at these kinds of things is the team is already frustrated by the time it gets to you. The team is super frustrated with this human being. They don’t wanna do their work anymore. They’re tired of, of standing out for them. They’re tired of helping out.

And so they’re looking to you to be the leader. They’re looking to you to make the tough decision. And when you waffle like this, they lose respect and trust in you because you’re not able to make that decision. So trust me when I say that, they would much rather you fire them and take the extra work than to keep going in this manner.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I, I mean, I’m, as we say at the end of every episode, it depends, you know, I, I think there are things you need to, to think about here. And there have certainly been occasions where I’ve held on to employees until I had a replacement because I, I needed the bandwidth, right? Sure. But there’s a difference in what you’re describing here or what your friend describes where I, I think of this as a diseased employee, if you will.

Yes. Right. Because they, they have a bad attitude, which in almost all cases affects the rest of the team.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: And so it’s not that they’re just not as productive as they could be, but still get along well and, you know, kind of try their best. We’ve all had team members, I’m sure over the years that fall into that category where you’d like to replace them, but they’re not, they’re not doing harm.

They’re just not, they’re not living up to the potential that you would like to see. Those are cases where I think it can make sense to, to make sure you have a replacement lined up before you take action. Sure. But in a case like this where you have someone who is actively contributing in a negative way to the business.

I’m, I am much more a fan of just rip that bandaid off and be done with it. Because to your point, your team is already looking at you and saying, why aren’t you doing something about this?

Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Yep. They are. And I think if you, you can’t do this from an HR perspective, but if you polled your team and said, what do you think? They’d all be like we don’t know why she’s still here. Like, come on.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. Please do not treat this like Survivor. Do not take a vote of the team. Right. As to whether someone stays or goes. That’s that is

Gini Dietrich: it’s a bad idea.

Chip Griffin: It is derelict of duty. It may well be illegal or at least problematic. Just, no, don’t do that.

Gini Dietrich: But if you did, they would all vote her off the island.

Chip Griffin: Yes. More often than not, when you terminate an employee, the other team members that you have will be like, oh, finally.

Gini Dietrich: Finally. Yeah. I also think you’re right that when you have somebody who’s negatively affecting the organization, they, you know, it’s the bad apple, but spoils the whole lot, right?

So then they start to influence how other people feel. Correct. And maybe someone was feeling a little burned out, or maybe somebody was annoyed about something. Well, now they’re listening to this person go on and on and on all day long. And they start, that little annoyance becomes something bigger and all of a sudden you have a bigger cultural issue on your hands than just one terrible employee that you should just rip the bandaid off and get rid of.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t make it any more pleasant that, you know, to go through it, but it’s, it’s important and it will help your business overall. One of the other questions that I believe was asked in this particular scenario was, should there be a PIP? Please don’t do PIPs. Unless, unless your HR advisor tells you you need to do a PIP in order to lay the proper groundwork for whatever the particular scenario is, please don’t do them.

Don’t, or let, let me put it this way, don’t do a PIP anticipating that it’s going to have any impact.

Gini Dietrich: Yes,  it’s essentially, a 30 day notice.

Chip Griffin: Because I can think of maybe one scenario over the course of my career work, a PIP actually worked to turn an employee around.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. It’s essentially a 30 day notice. It’s like we’re giving you 30 days.

You’re not going to be employed here anymore, is essentially what it’s, I agree with you. I’ve never seen it work.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And so if, if you’re doing it for HR protection, fine, go for it. You should absolutely. Anytime you’re looking at terminating an employee, you should always talk with an HR advisor, employment attorney, whoever it is that you work with, just to make sure that there’s not something that you’re overlooking, that there’s some possible claim there that you need to address carefully and make sure that you dot your T or dot your I’s cross your T’s,

Gini Dietrich: dot your T’s. Cross your i’s

Chip Griffin: dot your T’s too. I mean, you know, whatever it takes. So you absolutely wanna make sure that you’re, you’re doing those things correctly and appropriately for the rules and regulations that apply in that particular scenario.

But if you are doing it because you think it’s gonna work, a PIP will not work.

Gini Dietrich: Yep. 100%. I’ve literally never seen it work. You’re exactly right. So I, and I agree. You know, we have an HR leader on our team, and she, she has us do PIPs, but it, it is too just, she’s super, super risk averse and super conservative.

So it’s, you know, very much to protect the business. And I’ll say that she has gotten me in a good practice of documenting everything, which as a business owner I was not very good at before. But she has definitely gotten me. So even if you don’t have, even if you’re not gonna do a PIP, I think it’s really important to document, document, you know, conversations that you’ve had where you’ve provided critical feedback or, you know, things like that.

Just document, because those are the kinds of things that’ll save you in the long run, especially from a risk perspective.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, and look, I mean, ultimately you do want to give people a fair chance and, you know, I, on occasion I have run across owners who are a little bit too quick to pull the trigger on getting rid of an employee.

Very rare.

Gini Dietrich: I was gonna say really?

Chip Griffin: Very, very rare. But, but by too quick I typically mean someone who is in their first few weeks still.

Gini Dietrich: Oh yeah.

Chip Griffin: Right. That, that is when, take a pause. I mean, to me, if, if you’re, if you’re going to part ways with someone that you’ve just brought on, there has to be a really good reason.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: Like, it, it can’t be just that they haven’t quite met your expectations. I mean, it has to be that there is something dramatic in their, usually in their behavior. I’ve, I’ve certainly had some where in their first 60 or 90 days, I’ve, I’ve parted company, but it was, I think in every situation it was because of their behavior and attitude, not because of performance. Right? Because performance, honestly, unless someone has completely misrepresented themselves and you’ve done a very, very poor job of vetting them in advance, most of the time, you shouldn’t be seeing that dramatic a difference in those first couple of months that you are truly surprised by it.

And there still should be room to improve with them. So. But behaviorally, yes. Fine. Then that’s a, that’s a good termination cause for the early stages of employment. But otherwise, most of the time I see owners wait too long to terminate.

Gini Dietrich: Always, always.

Chip Griffin: And, and usually by the time that you’re even thinking about it, you probably passed the point where you should have done it already.

Gini Dietrich: Yes. I have been guilty of that myself. I have to tell this story because it goes, it fits along with the firing somebody within the first 60 to 90 days, I have a really, really, really close friend who hired somebody, you know, they’re, they’re remote, um, hired them without, you know, meeting in person. They did Zoom calls, but the person would never turn on their camera, and the person starts and goes through onboarding and everything.

And the first like three weeks, they’re like this person doesn’t seem to be able to do this job that we’ve hired them to do, and they keep digging and digging. What they learned is that the person that they interviewed was this person’s friend who had the experience, and this guy wanted the job. So he had his friend interview for the job.

They offered the job thinking that they were, oh yeah. So this person started, and I mean, I think that’s called catfishing. But that’s what happened to them. So

Chip Griffin: That’s called fraud, is what it’s called.

Gini Dietrich: It’s called fraud. Uh, yeah. So they like it. They did fire that person in the first three weeks. But to your point, there are situations like that that you would do it.

But you’re right. Like most of the time people are in their honeymoon stage for the first six months at least.

Chip Griffin: I mean, they’re in their honeymoon stage and/or, you know, if I’ve got issues with performance in the early stage, I need to ask myself, am I, am I giving them the support they need, the training they need, the guidance they need,

Gini Dietrich: right?

Yes.

Chip Griffin: Because, to miss that badly in a hiring process is somewhat unlikely. It’s not impossible, but you know, more often than not, it takes a while before you really get to that point and you’re like, no, this really is not a good fit, but you, you shouldn’t wait too long. And you shouldn’t drag it out.

If you can find a replacement beforehand, whether that’s a contractor who can help fill the gap or something like that, I absolutely encourage that because you don’t want the rest of the team to feel burdened by the termination. But if they’re a bad apple, like the one that we described in this scenario where they are, you know, actively harming things and not simply not living up to their potential, you’re better off, even if everybody else has to pick up extra workload for the short term to part company and move on.

Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yes. Because I think everybody, like people are, are understanding for the most part. Right. And if they’re already feeling this, then relieving them of that stress is more important than them taking on some extra work. And they’re probably already taking the work on, so it’s not gonna be that much different for them, except that they don’t have this extra stress of this negative person around all the time.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And in some ways, I mean these, these are, these are easier situations to deal with with the team because if someone does have this kind of a pervasive bad attitude, it will not come at all as a surprise to their coworkers when they’re terminated. Yeah.

There are times where if it’s simply for underperformance, if someone isn’t closely enough working with that individual to notice the underperformance, that they might be surprised by it, and that can be more alarming to the team. So, you know, those are scenarios where you have to be more direct with your messaging. In this case, it sounds like everybody would completely understand exactly why this individual was let go.

Yeah. And so it solves some of that issue. Yes, yes. Now, the important thing, anytime you terminate somebody, particularly if there’s going to be a workload issue, you have to immediately be able to show your team proactive steps that you’re working to address it. Because they, they may be willing to step up in the short term to help fill the void.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: But they’re not gonna do that forever. And if it looks like you are dragging your feet and just trying to, you know, maybe pad your profit margins by waiting, or even if that’s not your intent, if that’s the appearance that can be problematic. Yep. So usually what I want to do, if I don’t have any kind of a replacement lined up, or a contractor who can help, I want to be clear, here are the steps we’re taking.

Here’s how we’re gonna try to fill this as soon as reasonably possible. Being clear that I’m not just gonna hire someone for the sake of hiring somebody, but I’m actively moving forward because I don’t want you to be shouldering more of the burden for longer than you have to.

Gini Dietrich: And, and you brought up a good point, which I think is having contractors pinch hit. Because every single agency owner should have a bench of contractors that they can, that they have relationships with, that they’ve worked with before, that they can bring in and off, on and off the bench when necessary. And this is a good reason to bring a contractor off the bench to be able to help you in, in the interim. If it’s 90 days, if it’s six months, however long it takes, because that will show your team exactly to your point that you’ve done something to help mitigate the workload and their risk, while also giving you all time to interview and hire the right person.

Chip Griffin: And you also need to be looking at the workload that you’re providing to your team. Are there things you can do to relieve the burden of what you’re asking them to do for a period of time? Maybe that means that there are internal projects that you’ve been working on that you want to hit pause on for a few weeks.

Gini Dietrich: Sure.

Chip Griffin: So that, so that you’re not contributing to that overwhelm that they potentially feel. So, you know, be mindful of those things and, and think about how can you make it as good as possible for them given the difficult circumstances they may be facing if they’re having to pick up this extra work in the short term.

Gini Dietrich: And like I said, always, always, always think about it from the perspective of, am I doing myself, as the leader a, a big injustice because I’m not making this decision? And I think that makes it a little bit easier.

Chip Griffin: Yep. I mean, bottom line is if, if you have decided that it’s time to, to move on from a particular employee, figure out how to do it as quickly as possible, there is no good reason to drag it out.

Gini Dietrich: 100%. Yes. And every time you do it, you, you take, it’s just like this big weight and you’re like, oh, why didn’t I do this sooner? Yep. Every time. Every time.

Chip Griffin: Yep. So with that, I guess we’ll ask why didn’t we end this episode even sooner?

Gini Dietrich: Oh boy.

Chip Griffin: No. Oh well, so that will draw to an end this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast.

I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And it depends.