What if one of your best employees was forced to move to a new city or wanted to leave for a better opportunity? Would you do whatever it took to keep them, such as making a job for him or her to work remotely or would you encourage them to leave?
I was faced with that very scenario with my documentation and training business many years ago. When the spouse of one of my best employees got reassigned to San Antonio, TX, I chose to keep him on the payroll in the hopes that we could open up a new office in San Antonio. It was one of the worst business decisions I ever made. It was not the remote location as much as it was not having the right kind of productive work to keep him busy given he was no longer located with the rest of the team. It is always tempting to adjust your business model to keep good talent. However, it rarely works out well for either party. In fact these days I think it is best to avoid hiring anyone until the pain threshold is so high that not hiring them is leaving money on the table or manifesting itself in the burnout of you or your other employees.
Payroll is one of the largest expenses in most businesses. Trying to keep an employee if the work is not there while you wait for the workload to catch up wastes valuable cash. In my case, it consumed my profit margin for about 2 months until it became obvious it was not working out, leaving me short of capital that could have been used more productively. I have shared this story with several peers over the years and in nearly every case they experienced similar results. These days I’m pretty emphatic when it comes to counseling scalable businesses to wait as long as they can before making the commitment to add a new staff member. The same is true when a star becomes available, but you don’t have the work to keep them productive, I advise don’t hire them.
Moreover in a recent article by Sydney Finkelstein in the Wall Street Journal titled “Why the Best Leaders Want Their Superstar Employees to Leave” the author spent 10 years studying the top bosses and points out that it is better to have a top talent for a short time than an average employee forever. Top talent is on a rapid growth trajectory and is always angling for the next big opportunity. If your company is perceived as a launchpad for a supercharged career you will continue to attract top talent.
Do you hire too soon or keep employees too long, risking the overall health of your business rather than lose or pass on a star performer? Is your company perceived as a launchpad for a better career so top talent is drawn to your business?
