How To Fire Loyal Employees

Finding good employees are hard to find in any economy. Sometimes we just settle for a warm body. We then end up with a group of people that might or might not be a good fit for our organization and culture.

What I want to talk about now is one of the hardest things that you might have to face as a business owner or leader. What do you do when you have a really loyal employee, someone who's been with you for a long time, but their performance has slipped.

Their performance is not where it needs to be anymore, you just can't get rid of them or you just don't want to. They've been with you for a long time. They've been loyal, somebody that you could always count on. Somebody who had your back.

Loyalty really matters.. and you value that. Plus, you don't want to be flippant about somebody's life and somebody's job, their livelihood. But, consider for a moment...

What if, what you're perceiving, to be continued loyalty is partially loyalty, but it's also kind of stagnation or laziness.

Because this is what happens sometimes when someone stays in a job longer than they should because it's the easy thing to do.

But the reality is, their heart has moved on and they're just not in it anymore. At this point, you want their success more than they do in this role.

And if you're being honest with yourself and with them, it shows. You see they are not bad people. They're just yesterday's people. So when it comes to your team, don't substitute loyalty for performance.

Help them to determine what do they want? If it's aligned to your company's goals and vision show them how they can get what they want by being engaged in the team and helping the team as a whole get what they want.

You see that is what a team is. Together Everyone Achieves More. But we must be progressing together down the path of worthwhile goals.

Now if you discover there is no fit anymore, see what you can do to help them find the path that will help them get what they want. And that might just be working for someone else.

If this resonates with you and you want to learn more on how to build a more engaged team that is working together and lives your vision of your company, schedule a free strategy session with me to unlock your company's potential.