How to Properly Grow Your Team By Hiring Slow and Firing Fast

Nobody at work wants to be the bad guy within restaurant management and let people go - and who can blame them? This industry has struggled severely throughout the pandemic with limitations of seating, pickup, and delivery. You could easily see how being on the front lines could easily burnout even the most dedicated of employees. During staff shortages, you may be tempted to hire the first person that responds to your job posting, but be patient. The old work adage of hire slow, fire fast has never been more important to put into practice.

Don’t think that you are the only employer facing these issues. Nearly 3 out of 4 employers have found that they have hired the wrong person for a position. Interestingly, Amazon has made a practice to pay workers within their fulfillment centers a whopping $5000 to quit! There is a caveat, however, in which those employees that quit can never work for Amazon again. Still, rewarding employees that are not a fit does make sense, and it keeps a workplace from potentially becoming a toxic workplace for the employees around the worker that just isn’t working out.

What exactly are the dangers of hiring too quickly? First, you’ll want to carefully consider both your needs and your expectations. You should then draft up a job description based on your business goals - it’s hard to win without a plan. Describe the skills and attributes that you think that the potential employee will need for long-term success - trying our best to prevent significant turnover can really make a difference in the long run. As they say, teamwork makes the dream work. Carefully considering that even a good potential employee may not fit well with your current team dynamics could spell disaster for the future of your team’s success and support of one another.

Let’s talk about firing fast. As we started earlier in this discussion, nobody wants to come across as the bad guy and it can be emotionally devastating to be the one firing an employee. However, there is hope and it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as we may imagine in our minds. There are times that you just hired the wrong person, especially in busy growth times and times of turnover turmoil. One must be forgiving in terms of mistakes, but it’s critical to not keep an employee on staff that’s a bad fit. Firing is really a hiring mistake that needs resolution. A focus on the long-term benefits will help you realize this. And above all, remember to focus on approaching the employee with compassion and do what you can in order to aid their transition in moving on.

In conclusion, it’s important to stay ahead of the game and know what potential pitfalls you’re in for when it comes to growing your team for success - learn more about how to properly hire slow and fire fast in the visual deep dive below:

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