MANAGE & LEAD
I CAN ’ T LET THEM GO
By Cheryl L . Koch , CPCU , CIC , ARM , AAI , AAM , AIM , AIS , ARP , API , AINS , ACSR , AFIS , MLIS
Many agencies have one – a long-term employee who is no longer as productive as they once were and may even hold the organization back or cause morale problems with other staff members . Perhaps this person has been there since the agency first started , wearing many hats and helping get the business off the ground . Or maybe they helped get the agency through a rough time , such as the illness of an owner or other crisis that threatened the firm ’ s very existence . Even though you acknowledge , on an intellectual level , that this person is no longer a good fit , your emotional side prevents you from doing what your head tells you you must . You can ’ t picture yourself letting this person go . After all , they ’ ve been loyal to you and the agency all this time . How could you repay that loyalty with a pink slip ? And if your agency is in a small town , you know you ’ re going to run into this person in the future , and you fear how awkward that meeting would be .
Understandably , you would struggle with the notion of terminating this employee . We ’ d see it as a little less than human if you didn ’ t feel this way . But the reality is , the agency has moved on , and this individual decided not to make the trip or was unable to do so . The irony is that they know it as well . They haven ’ t been happy or fulfilled in their position in a long time , but they also know of your reluctance to make difficult decisions for personnel . The easiest decision to make is often no decision at all . So , they stay in their secure , albeit unrewarding , position knowing you will not be able to let them go . You make it hard on the agency ’ s other staff members who see the situation and fail to understand why you won ’ t do anything about it . You may have lost a key person because of your failure to act , or you may not have had the opportunity to hire a great person because they were aware of the situation and didn ’ t want to get involved . Meanwhile , you ’ re paying someone to turn in a mediocre performance when you could re-deploy those assets to build your team for the future .
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