How to Run a Staffing Business: Fire the Right People


Managing your staff effectively is important, of course, especially if you’re running a staffing business, yourself. Many companies obsess about recruiting and retaining the right people. One factor that is often overlooked is whether the right people are being fired. Worrying about new people joining your organization seems silly if there are current staff members that undermine the team as a whole.

No doubt about it: confronting underperformers is a difficult task. To look a person in the eye and tell him he’s not cutting the mustard can be gut-wrenching. But in the long run, enabling underperforming employees (or downright disruptive ones) can create more problems. Here are some tips on how to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Assess Your Actively Disengaged

A 2001 Gallup study (http://businessjournal.gallup.com/content/466/gallup-study-indicates-actively-disengaged-workers-cost-us-hundreds.aspx) estimated that workers “actively disengaged” or “fundamentally disconnected” from their jobs cost the economy some several billion dollars each year. Just think of the damage such employees can do to your staffing business. Workers who have checked out of their jobs have no business keeping them, not only because they are unproductive, but because their disengagement can be contagious. Poorly motivated and idle workers should be the first to go.

Fire Mis-Hires

Often it is clear within a few weeks or months sometimes within days! whether a new employee fits your organization’s needs and culture. You may decide to save face by investing in the development of that team member. Usually, it doesn’t work and months pass. Instead of throwing good money after bad, cut your losses fast. “Failure work” can be expensive and doesn’t guarantee an efficient worker at the end of it. Consider redeploying the staff member into a department which you think she’d be better suited, or simply cut your losses and let her go. Not to be crass about people’s careers and lives, but when running a staffing business, you need to act decisively for the good of the team..

Review Performance Regularly

Annual performance reviews occur too infrequently to be effective tools. Leaders need to assess the performance of staff regularly if they are to effectively run a staffing business. First, learn to monitor your staff’s work. Second, have regular team meetings, to hear their opinions on the team and the department, so they feel involved. Make it clear what you demand in your employees. It is against this measure that you can assess potential for continued growth and development.

Build Your Bench

When the ax falls, you need to have talent in the wings to call upon. By building a solid bench, the decision to cut employees doesn’t hold the same degree of stress. It ensures you have a reserve of talent to help you boost your business. By cultivating talent at all levels you will be ready when it comes time to make changes.

Assessing your talent should be imperative for how to run a staffing business. No one enjoys being the big bad boss laying an employee’s job on the line, but for the success of your staffing business and for your lon- term growth, changes are often necessary. Remove any unmotivated workers, assess the output of your workforce, and build a reserve of new talent. You’ll find it a lot less difficult to terminate those who aren’t helping your business.