Why settle for anything less?
There are two truisms taught at THE BUSINESS ACADEMY that should form the bedrock of your decisions to keep staff on or let them go.
- A position is better left unfilled than filled with an incompetent person.
- A staff member should produce five to ten times their pay in value or revenue for the company.
We all know the situation, practices get themselves into.
“But she’s my biller and is the only one that knows the system.” ( Staff member is vehemently hated by the other staff and has the billing backlogged, gives problems and blame when asked what is going on )
“The clients and staff love him” ( Kindly old fumbler that shows up to work every day – “loyal” but produces almost nothing except bad advice and stories about the early days of the company.)
“She’s become a good friend” ( Good friend arrives late every day and takes one day off every five while mostly hanging out with you and chatting instead of working )
“He has problems in his personal life and If I fired him I worry that I will be responsible” ( Guy has had problems in his personal life for the last 6 years. And seems to just crash from one disaster to the next, each one affecting the workplace slightly more than the last.)
“She’s the only one that knows how to do XYZ and I have no time to train anyone” ( Staff member uses their secret knowledge of how the wifi works or where all the codes are or something like this to justify their super low production position)
Im sure you can think of many other things people tell themselves to keep themselves surrounded by incompetent staff and not thriving.
Now we aren’t talking about really destructive, vindictive and evil people here. That is the topic of another article. We are just talking about dead wood, or miserable low producers.
If you do have such staff in your business the first thing you must clarify for yourself is:
WHAT AM I DOING?
Because its either
- Running some sort of charity for downtrodden miserable non-producers that you are funding on your own dime.
- Trying to run a viable thriving and expanding practice that not only makes a difference in the world, but provides fulfilling careers for productive staff.
If its B. Keep reading.
Each non productive, distractive or miserable staff member is costing you money.
HUGE AMOUNTS.
Not only in their pay, but much more.
The below will be seen in varying degrees.
They depress the morale of the staff.
They make the hard working staff feel resentful toward you for keeping that person on…
They make costly mistakes.
They require the work of two other staff members to handle their errors.
They hog your attention and time.
Let’s say you have a biller named Bessie who kind of gets the job done but is super miserable, complains, criticises the outfit and people just keep out of her way.
Her job can be learned ( and probably fast and well- by a bright person )
Why don’t you just remove her and train up someone to do the exact same job – who is NOT miserable and brings the team UP?
Why tolerate it for more than a minute?
Let’s say you have a marketer called Jim, who years ago brought in 15 new patients a week. He became a good friend of yours, you went hunting a few times together, you met his family…
There was that cool drunken time on his brothers boat where you guys caught that big fish!
Now for the last two years he has just brought in one or two new patients a month…
Despite everything you have done to help the guy change this, nothing has happened…
He’s hit some rough times, so you let it slide for longer …but now your practice is really suffering and your staff are outraged that you keep this guy on…yet you don’t act…because you feel sad for him and remember his laughing ruddy face as he reeled in the big delicious snapper that he let you take home…
Back to A and B What are you doing?
There are people out there DYING for a chance to show you what they can do to help make your dreams a reality!
Why settle for anything less?
Coming soon – An article called HOW TO FIRE NON-PRODUCING STAFF AND BOOM YOUR PRACTICE.
