Should We Tell Pat to Depart

Unexpected departures of key employees can be hard to manage because of loss of experience and morale changes in the company.  Great employees are what you want and never want to lose.  What if a great worker is engaged in activates that are counter to the culture you want to build in the company, or if the employee’s work habits have changed and they no longer fit the requirements for the job?  There may come a time when you need to assess the situation and suggest Pat look elsewhere for employment!

Management of a startup comes with duties of managing personnel.  Personnel have differing personalities and needs.  Some require little maintenance while others require significant handholding.  Compensation is always a difficult issue to contend with, especially when the company has limited financial resources.  What if Pat is requiring more equity or compensation than the business can afford or warranted for the job?  Some employees take negative compensation responses and go on about their business, while others fester and spread discontent among the others in the company.

Team members can be leaders but some lead in a negative manner.  Their focus is on themselves rather than their team.  They choose to focus on tasks to improve their visibility but downplay the performance or activities of those that work for them.  The leader may be great at what they do but they are not so great when it comes to keeping the team motivated.

As the CEO entrepreneur, leaning which members are best suited for which task is an important function of the job.  You may never know how those people are behaving when they are not in direct contact with you.  Walking around and interacting with the other staff may help you take the temperature of the morale in the company.  It is always best that you learn about how your team is working when visible as well as some of the activities that go on in the backrooms. 

Managing your team properly means knowing what is fair and unfair.  Compensation is a great example.  You should learn what is fair in terms of equity and salary and hold the line on those levels.  Compensations too far outside of the range have implications on the way the company functions, meets budgets, and morale.  Do not think you can give someone a raise and others not find out.  In fact, you cannot even give yourself a raise without the others eventually finding out.  The gossip starts as soon as one person learns the secret.  What happens next is anyone’s guess, but usually it is not good for the company. 

In short, you have people that work in the business with you.  They have differing personalities and traits.  Knowing their wants and needs as well as their less desirable attributes can help you manage the business to a higher level of performance.  Eventually, you may have to tell that great employee to leave because they no longer fit the needs of the company.  Try to do it with grace and appreciation of past service, but do it when you see they create more to the downside than the up side.

Taffy Williams is on Twitter by @twilli2861.  Email  questions to twilli2861@aol.com. His company website ,  photo website, or like ColonialTDC on Facebook.  You can also find him in the group Startup Group on Linkedin. Other articles are published in the Charlotte, NC- small business section of Examiner.com.