Fairness: A Misguided Concept?

Tolerating poor performance in the interest of fairness is a misguided concept.

Over the years I’ve seen many business owners, and leaders, justify their tolerance of poor performance by saying that they want to be fair to the underperforming employee. There are two things wrong with their concept of fairness:

1. They aren’t considering whether they’re being fair to their other employees.
2. They aren’t considering what the underperforming employee is experiencing.

Let’s explore each of these in more detail.

Fairness to other employees

Owners and leaders, in their attempts to be fair to the poor performing employee, forget that the person’s coworkers are having to pick up the slack and clean up the messes let by the underperforming employee.

Is that fair? I don’t think so. That’s why my Making The EXCEPTIONAL Normal program uses a group meeting format for establishing goals and priorities, celebrating successes and solving problems. In this group format all employees get to see who is performing well and who isn’t, who is functioning as a valuable team member and who is not.

Employees witness all of the attempts being made to help the poor performer as well as the failure of the underperforming employee to embrace that help. In other words, when that consistent poor performer’s employment is terminated, they know that it was done with just cause…and they appreciate the fact that the owner/leader removed an obstacle to their team’s success.

Fairness to underperformer

Typically people who consistently fail to perform to expectations are fully aware of that fact. That means that every morning they awaken wondering whether today is the day the axe is going to fall…that they’re going to be out of a job. That’s a horrible way to live.

No one with a heart wants to terminate someone’s employment, but, in fairness, we not only alleviate a lot stress, fear and anxiety, we enable the person to move onto a better fit for their skills and abilities.

During my early years as a CFO (Chief Financial Officer), there were two instances, with two different companies, when I had to let an employee go. In both instances, the individual saw me roughly a year later and thanked me. They said “I’ve found a job I really enjoy, I’m making more money and I really enjoy the people.”

All too often employees stay in jobs that don’t make them happy because they fear the uncertainty involved in finding another job. It’s a matter of the devil you know versus the one you have yet to meet. This is why it’s often up to us, as business owners and leaders, to take on the unpleasant task of terminating the employment of poor performers.

Takeaways

Stop kidding yourself that the reason why you’re tolerating poor performance is that you want to be fair to the underperforming employee.

Instead, think about whether you’re being fair to your other employees. Then imagine how much stress, fear and anxiety the poor performer is experiencing. It’ll change your whole perspective on fairness.

In situations in which clients have acknowledged that they need to terminate a poor performer, but continue to postpone doing so, I ask them “Is it fair to allow that person to live in daily fear of losing their job because you don’t want to have a 5-minute meeting in which you tell them that they no longer have a job with you?” Realization that they’re prolonging another’s pain to avoid their own discomfort typically inspires them to act.

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If you’d like the leaders in your organization to learn how to use the numbers more effectively and dramatically improve the productivity of your workforce, contact me to learn more about these resources:

Resources

Making the EXCEPTIONAL Normal program helps you identify and nurture emerging leaders who elevate all around them to higher levels of performance and greater job enjoyment.

Financial Awareness & Strategy program where employees learn to identify opportunities to improve financial results and prioritize these opportunities on the basis of which produces the greatest impact with the least effort. Greater financial awareness = Better decisions.