Hire Slow, Fire Slow - 3 Reasons Why

You didn’t read it wrong. A lot of leaders believe in the motto “hire slow, fire fast”, but I strongly disagree because people are the most important resource in any organization. When you hire and retain the best people, you have the biggest advantage for your business.

Contrariwise, if you don’t have a strong human resource, you won’t be able to execute any process, system, or strategy to have a successful business. That will ultimately bring you struggle and overwork.

Sadly, many organizations are focused only on profitability, promising that once they make the desired profit, they’ll pay more or provide better benefits to their employees. But they have that upside down. 

In my +30 years of career, I have worked with hundreds of franchisees and I can assure you that the top-performing franchisees are the ones that put people first, not profits. That’s the key to the reach the profitability you expect.

Here are three reasons why you should change the mindset to have better performance in your organization.

Reason #1

Perhaps you have interviewed hundreds but you still haven’t found what you are looking for. But don’t get desperate! If you hire someone fast to get out of the problem, your operation will suffer.

You have to take the necessary steps and time to bring in the people that will help you reach your entrepreneurial dream and build the future of your organization. That process has to be careful, consistent, and structured to identify the skills, desires, and values of the candidates to make sure they are the right hire.

Watch this video tip to discover who the candidates really are with the behavioral interviewing. 

It's not only about knowing what you're looking for. You have to establish a solid system to recognize the right candidates. It is worth it: if the process is done correctly and well thought, the next leader of your organization may be within those hires! Learn all about how to develop your leadership bench on this video.

Reason #2

As for the firing, you shouldn’t make a rapid decision. Ultimately, you chose those people because you saw something that made you believe they were right. 

If things don’t turn out how you thought it’s because you don't have a good, solid, systematic way of hiring the best people. My advice is to revise your processes and design a better system that will allow you to discover whether a person is a great fit for your company or not.

Perhaps you do have a strong hiring process but an employee is not doing what you expected. Here’s the awful truth: something failed them. It can be your leadership, your organization, your systems or the team.

If that’s the case, slow down and get to work to find the reason. Have an honest conversation with them to learn what’s causing the situation before you terminate the contract. By doing that, you are giving them, and yourself, a chance to turn things around. 

Each of our employees is critically important for your organization, so I urge you to look at every one of your collaborators, from your district manager to the rest of the crew, to ensure not only that they are the right people, but that they have the tools, resources, and support they need and that they know they matter to you as a leader. 

Supposing that anybody is not performing well enough, take time to deduce why rather than going directly into a disciplinary action. You have to create the right processes when hiring, and spend as much time and energy in finding out how to save those job positions.

Reason #3

Turnover costs a lot of money. As a matter of fact, it is the biggest hidden expense in your business. It is probably much more expensive than labor or product costs because it causes more waste and more loss of profit than anything else in your organization. And since it's hidden and you don't see it, you can’t quantify how much you are wasting. 

And what’s worse: in turnover, what you waste is the time you spend and the effort you make to hire and train people. Another thing you may lose is customers, because of poor performance. And if an employee is not doing a job, his morale may get hurt and his motivation goes down, which gets him into a vicious circle of bad results.

As you can see, turnover causes a tremendous amount of expenses and financial loss. This is why you really should slow down before you let go of someone that, at some point in time, you thought was a great fit for your organization.

Think about it this way. Every single employee that leaves your organization is costing you and your team not only profit, but also morale, quality, service, and everything else that makes your business go well. 

I know that there is a huge belief in hiring slow and firing fast, but I would like to encourage you to take a step back, analyze the situation carefully and, only then, decide what to do.

Do you want to know how to develop those strict, consistent discipline systems on how to hire the right people for your organization? Visit our American Franchise Academy website. There you can learn of all the tools, training programs and best practices we share to become a successful franchisee. Also, subscribe to our YouTube Channel, where you can view our Multi-unit Mastery Monday each week.

Reflections: 

• Your hiring process is careful, consistent, and structured or do you hire by heart?
• Are you doing everything you can to save a job before letting go of an employee?
• Is there anything in your systems, processes, team or environment that could make your employees not perform well enough?
• If that's the case, what can you do about it?

WATCH THIS VLOG on YouTube HERE.