You won’t succeed with every hire you make, so what can you do when that new hire clearly isn’t living up to expectations?
The stakes are high; Career Builder notes that 41% of companies have made a bad hire in the last year that cost them at least $25,000.
So while you can take comfort in knowing you aren’t alone, you still need to do something about it. Start by making sure you did everything you could. Have you provided adequate training? Does your employee have the resources to get the job done? Does your employee understand what’s expected?
If it turns out that the person isn’t a good fit for the job, do you have another position he or she might be better suited for?
If coaching and new duties aren’t enough, there may not be much more you can do. Document shortcomings and problems and the efforts you took to correct them, and this may be a time for legal help too – personnel issues can be as delicate as they get.
Once you’ve solved the problem, be sure to revisit your hiring procedures to lessen the chances of a bad hire the next time.
Adapted from How to Correct a Bad Hire at Small Business Computing.