I begin with this caveat. To determine that someone is not buying into your vision, you must first communicate that vision with great clarity. Over the years I have read numerous exit interview notes taken by the people in the human resources department. We did these exit interviews to learn why people left us. Many employees said they were either never given clear direction or had no idea of their purpose in the whole scheme of things. These indicate that the company vision has not been clearly communicated, which is a completely different problem. However, if you have told every employee what your expectations are, and you see that most of your employees “get it,” but you have someone who through his attitude or actions will not embrace your company values--don’t be afraid to show him the door. You cannot imagine how much damage an employee with a bad attitude can do to your organization. Bad attitudes are cancers that quickly spread to even your best employees.
No doubt larger companies that offer more in the way of salaries and benefits can be much more selective when hiring employees. I have hired people while working in both small and large organizations, so I am aware of the challenges a small business owner faces when trying to find and keep good people. As mentioned earlier, I have witnessed first-hand the damage an employee, whose actions and attitudes do not reflect the company values, can do. I recall one case in the earlier days of a company I worked for. We were still small and felt we had to settle for less than best. We had a high performing, experienced employee in our company whose attitude was toxic. People would go out of their ways to avoid contact with this individual because most dealings ended either with the people getting their heads bitten off or made to feel like they were idiots. Because of the toxic employee’s quality and quantity of work, the manager was hesitant to address her [] knowing her loss [] would create a disruption in workflow. However, eventually, the other people in the department decided they no longer wanted to work in this environment. Within [] a few months the department experienced a complete turnover--except for our toxic friend. Because this person was not dealt with before she poisoned the entire group, we were forced to wait to let her go until we had hired replacements. During that time, we had to be careful that the new employees were not negatively affected. Had the problem been addressed earlier, we more than likely would have avoided the loss of several good employees.
