It\u2019s fairly well known, you can count on having about 10% bad apples on your team. No matter how great of a recruitment process in place, you\u2019re gonna hire some employees that just cannot get the work done. Oftentimes, it\u2019s due to augmenting their position to leadership when they are not ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question is, how bad can it get?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve hired a lot of talent at the web agency. But early on, as we faced growth challenges, we pushed some members of our team to higher responsibility (with better contracts). However, we quickly realized that the quality of work delivered did not rise. In fact, different contract, same results. And that\u2019s really the trick. How do you increase someone\u2019s contract with whom you are happy, but in the end the results do not rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a very important debate in France, notably. The contract needs to be respected. You cannot ask an employee to do more than the contract exposes. Yet, how do you know if the person can really accomplish more if they don\u2019t prove it first? This is the risk companies face, and often fail for lack of understanding the limits of their employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Employees cannot work more than their contract exposes for fear of being undervalued. How can they then be considered for a higher task if no one knows their capacity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No easy answers, and we made many mistakes promoting people who weren\u2019t ready because the contract needed it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One mistake I made was promoting a manager, we\u2019ll call this person \u2018Michael\u2019, after a successful project. Clearly based on one successful project, our mindset was that this person would be capable of managing at a higher level. But Michael didn\u2019t change. The world was changing, but Michael was staying the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n