Sometimes we just hired the wrong person. The candidate might seem right at the time of the interview, but once he or she starts the job you notice they just don’t fit in or they don’t fully grasp the job responsibilities. But instead of having hiring remorse, take action.
First, you have to figure out if you have made a mistake in hiring. There will be immediate signs. After training, is the new hire making the same mistakes over and over again? If so, he may not understand the tasks at hand.
Is the employee socializing with other staff, or has she failed to interact? Being anti-social may be a sign she is not a good fit for the team and maybe not a team player.
Does she compare this job with her previous one out loud? Another sign she might not be fully vested into becoming a committed employee.
So how long should you give the person to adapt to the new job? “Give it some time. At least a month. But that depends on why he’s a wrong hire. We ensure that a person who doesn’t share our beliefs doesn’t get hired. So if we find out he’s unethical and/or hampering progress of our organization, then we let that person go,” says Deepa Kartha, founder and CEO of employee engagement platform Zinda.xyz. “If it’s about productivity, you should wait at least a month or two before you make a decision.”
Analyze whether the person can be groomed into becoming the right hire or would be better suited for another position within your company. “If the person is wrong for the particular job due to lack of skills or inability to successfully perform at this particular job, but, the hire has the right attitude, is a hard-worker and fits the culture of the organization, then you should consider whether the hire can be better suited for another role within the organization,” explains Ivelices Linares Thomas, CEO of HR & Beyond.
Make use of your probationary period to figure out what went wrong with the hire. “An organization’s probationary period should be the time taken to evaluate the employee’s ability to be successful in the role (depending on the complexity of the job it can take anywhere from 30 – 90 days). If the probationary period is approaching an end and you still have questions about the employee’s performance, you can extend the period to give the employee another 30 days to demonstrate whether they can meet the needs of the role,” offers Thomas.
If you decide that the new person doesn’t fit with the company at all, it’s time to make the decision. “You need to be straightforward. Instead of stretching the conversation, you should get straight to the point. But HR executives often confuse this with being rude. When you’re rude in such a situation, it only makes matters worse. You should focus on his body language, and listen to him with patience. If you don’t like his case, then you need to make sure he empathizes with you. After all, he too deserves to know why you’re letting him go,” explains Kartha.
