A company brings on an employee who is a good fit for the seat on the bus that needed to be filled.
Over time, the company changes. Those changes could include, among other things, more employees being hired, the type of work the company does evolving, and/or greater systematization of the way the company goes about serving its clients.
What happens often with these and other changes is that the employee hired years ago is now not a good fit.
Maybe they don’t like learning new technology, such as online construction management tools. It could be that they are used to working by themselves and don’t want to be part of the new team approach to running a project that the company has adopted. It might be that their productivity has diminished over time, so now they stand out from the other employees as someone who is not up to par.
If the original employee is a decent person, it becomes more and more difficult for the owner to think of letting them go. Time goes by. And the only way the employee becomes no longer part of the company is if they quit, move, or pass away.
When they finally are gone, the owner breathers a sigh of relief.
Why not simply free up the employee’s future? What is wrong with that? After all, the owner didn’t marry the employee. The relationship is a business relationship, and change is part of business and life.
I say this as someone who had several great employees, including one who worked with us for over 25 years. Darrel learned and grew over the years, moving from one seat on the bus to another several times over the years. He set a standard for performance that was remarkable.
At the same time, my experience is that companies that have an average employee tenure of 10 years often have at least one employee who should have already been let go.
Take a look your workforce. Who are the best employees and what makes them the best? Keep them. Free up the future of those who were once a fit but aren’t anymore. Leaving their tails stuck to what are now the wrong seats on the bus does neither you nor them any good in the long run.
And it sends a bad message to those remaining good employees who want to be part of a successful company.