Ask HN: Should I fire half of my team because their performance is terrible?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1648869

by firingtest • 16 years ago

67 92 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Sorry for the throw away account for obvious reasons.

I've a small startup,all telecommuting,8 technical guys. Most of them with the team for a year or more now. Their performance is generally bad, it's sometimes good sometimes bad, but I have to nudge them to get things done,constantly.

I've tried lots of things to motivate them and didn't succeed. I'm part of the core technical team which means I end up working extra, covering for them as well as working with all other business related stuff. Put it this way,I'm fed up with them.

I'm planning to fire 5 problematic ones and hire new guys slowly and carefully.

2 Questions; * Shall I fire, and how should I proceed? * How can I hire new telecommuters and ensure that their performance will be good? (I know many thinks performance is nothing to do with an office, but my experience in several companies makes me think different)

FYI: All getting well paid, happy with business and if you ask them all performance problems are personal and they do accept that their performance is bad and unacceptable.

jpluscplusm• 16 years ago

"I've tried lots of things to motivate them and didn't succeed." "I have to nudge them to get things done,constantly."

Sounds like the managerial and systemic failure is all yours, dude.

If you've not introduced automated systems to track what's being done and /help/ them (e.g. redmine, tracking relatively highly decomposed tasks, etc) keep on top of the work and the deadlines (and know why each deadline's important; i.e. who they'll be screwing over if they don't deliver) then you've only got yourself to blame.

Why would you think it'll be different with new people - because you'll just "be better" at hiring this time around? Unlikely.

firingtest21• 16 years ago

> If you've not introduced automated systems to track what's being done and /help/ them

I'm not quite sure why you think we don't have these but we do have all. So everyone knows what's been done, what's need to done and what are the deadlines. (although generally we don't have strict deadlines).

> Why would you think it'll be different with new people - because you'll just "be better" at hiring this time around? Unlikely.

Well this is fair comment, I simply don't although it was my first time hiring people for me, so I'm sure I've got more experience on that now and secondly I know what our company culture and what's the good fit, based on good employees I've got in my team. So I've good reference points this time.

Robin_Message• 16 years ago

(FWIW, I have no management experience, so these are just some ideas and questions from the other side. Good luck whatever happens.) If 5 out of 8 people working for me were sometimes good and sometimes bad, I'd worry I am not leading them right. Also, with so many people performing badly, is poor performance now part of your company's culture? What contact do your employees have with each other?

Before you let them go, have you analysed what makes the difference between their performance being good and bad? What have you tried to motivate them? Have you asked them if there is anything that would motivate them and if there is anything that is demotivating them?

One suggestion though: Are they being given enough direction? No-one likes a micro-manager, but having a couple of clear goals for what to get out of a day does wonders for my productivity. The thing is though, I'm not great at setting that for myself. Working with someone to set that kind of daily target is great. You say you have to nudge them constantly, but I'd argue you are probably an exceptional person (e.g. starting your own company and employing 8 people.) Setting goals and direction is what you are good at. If your employees were good at it, they wouldn't be working for you, they'd be your competition!

firingtest21• 16 years ago

> Before you let them go, have you analysed what makes the difference between their performance being good and bad? What have you tried to motivate them? Have you asked them if there is anything that would motivate them and if there is anything that is demotivating them?

Yeah I worked on this for a while now, and if you ask them it's all personal problems (stuff I can't help unless I'm willing to take their mother to their aunty's). I think one of the reasons we are in this shape because I don't want to micro-manage, I don't want to make it company culture. Although we do have task tracking and everything so basically everyone knows what they supposed to do. We hold regular teleconferences every week (for all the team) and as much as required through out day between individuals.

I've listened stories of other companies such as 37signals how they mange to work telecommuting, how they don't need to nudge people to work and stuff which makes me wonder whether I'm an incompetent manager or most of my team are incompetent workers.

> If your employees were good at it, they wouldn't be working for you!

Interesting point maybe you right, but to be honest I don't want to spend half of my day to keep nudging people :) Also I had these 3 guys who works perfectly fine, so what about them? Are they just exceptionally good? Somehow much much more motivated than others?

auxbuss4• 16 years ago

Working remotely is different to working together in an office, of course. It requires different skills and a different type of motivation, ime. It also requires far better communication skills. Weak communication skills can kill productivity.

An observation I've made is that folk who hide their mistakes can be a serious problem. You need the complete opposite, so that when someone shouts for help, then it's all hands to the pump. Those folk they can be hugely disruptive without realising it.

Regarding nudging: Ask when something will be done (with units of work that are small enough to make this viable), and get them to commit to it. If they repeatedly don't deliver, and fail to communicate the problems, then you know you have a problem.

Nudging is usually a sign of poor (or no) communication and lack of confidence.

Goladus4• 16 years ago

If personal problems are in the way, expressing priorities clearly is even more important than usual. Employees need a clear understanding of what they need to accomplish before they can stop thinking about work and start taking care of business. Make that boundary clear and when they've done what you need and are dealing with personal stuff, you ask no questions (stress about work is probably making their personal problems worse, which in turn is hurting their performance).

berntb2• 16 years ago

>>if you ask them it's all personal problems

I did a double take when I saw that. I have to ask:

Five of eight really say that personal problems influence work that much for so long?!

You do realize that is statistically unlikely?! (Unless they are in e.g. Pakistan, with natural and man made catastrophes.)

pmjordan• 16 years ago

As others have said, it does sound like a management issue. One thing that might be interesting is figuring out why the other 3 are doing better. Do they work on different parts of the project (or even a different project)? Do they communicate more amongst each other or with you, do they have a personal bond beyond the "colleague" level? Do they have equity or some other motivating factor? It could well be that they do just naturally have a lot of drive, but if that is the case you're doing pretty well at 37.5% self-motivated employees.

charliepark3• 16 years ago

Perhaps, rather than firing all 5 of them, you should hire a really good manager who can work with them. Or, fire the worst of the lot, and use his salary to hire a manager.

Focus on what you're good at, and if you have the money, hire someone to fill in where you're weak.

firingtest21• 16 years ago

So I should fire myself :) A fair point but do you really think it's a good team if the team needs a constant manager to nudge to get things done, do you think it's a good company culture to setup?

Personally I don't want such a culture in my own company.

charliepark3• 16 years ago

That's a really good point. I'd prefer to work on an engineering-heavy team, rather than a team that requires lots of management, too.

noverloop• 16 years ago

I think you are right to focus on company culture instead of hiring/becoming better nudgers.

The teams that I've been in that were self-managing had a few things in common. The first one was that the incentive-structure was performance-based (even better, you should link it to the company goals) Second was that there was a social cohesion, 'the team' would get annoyed when somebody wasn't doing what he should have been doing, it's effective because people are social animals and nobody wants to be excluded (if they can help it). and third would be that they had the autonomy to make design decisions as long as these didn't impact stuff the others are working on.

I think that building a team that you can trust to get things done is well worth the hassle of firing/rehiring and maybe firing some more.

pbhjpbhj• 16 years ago

>Personally I don't want such a culture in my own company.

Managers manage people. Most (all?) companies have them, how many sports teams do you know of without a coach? Sure a team works without a manager but managers definitely get the most out of a team, that's their raison d'etre.

It sounds like you're looking for something other than a company - a group of independently motivated individuals striving for personal goals that happen to be close enough aligned that some useful product results. It sounds like a FOSS project in that sense.

Don't be afraid to fire yourself.

tablet3• 16 years ago

I've asked very similar question. Check comments in it as well

Ask HN: Should you fire average devs and have only talented devs in a team? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634231

firingtest21• 16 years ago

Thanks, but one of the problems I've got talented guys they just don't work properly, when they do (read: when I nudge them) I've got to give it to them, they are indeed pretty good.

berntb2• 16 years ago

Do they have some other projects they work on behind your back? (An old project leader managed an outsourced team that did that...)

Speaking for myself, I'm probably like your bad hires. If I do projects alone at work for more than a year, I start to hate my life. (-: Answer to next comment: "Yes, maybe that would be solved by getting a social life outside of work." :-)

tablet3• 16 years ago

I am curious what kind of motivation did you try? Also it is hard to work remotely and many people just can't do that.

firingtest21• 16 years ago

Stuff I've tried is mostly about talking, trying different systematic models (time tracking, semi-micro management, constant reporting or leaving them more space, trying to get excited with new technical bits, giving them bonus, cutting their salary etc., pep talk, pissed-off talk)

Many things, not done in exact science although it was obvious what slightly works and what definitely doesn't.

> Also it is hard to work remotely and many people just can't do that.

That's exactly my point, maybe these 5 guys can't handle remoting but I might find new 5 guys who can (just like I already got 3)

tablet3• 16 years ago

>>Stuff I've tried is mostly about talking, trying different systematic models (time tracking, semi-micro management, constant reporting or leaving them more space, trying to get excited with new technical bits, giving them bonus, cutting their salary etc., pep talk, pissed-off talk)

Did you try to share the vision? Set clear goals? Make sure that they really understand and share same values?

To me it looks like you tried to make environment more strict, while it is not the way to go in software development.

auxbuss4• 16 years ago

How often do you all sit in the same room?

How often to you pair, or simply work together physically?

First thing that struck me was the size of the team. Eight techs is a big team, especially for a start-up. I'm generalizing, obviously, as we have no idea what you are doing. It would help to know whether you are building product or service.

We need more info to offer good advice. Though it does sound like you need assistance.

firingtest21• 16 years ago

To be honest numbers are slightly less I put 8/5 by scaling the current technical team to a little bit more to keep it anonymous (I might be paranoid but my team mates reading HN as well!)

But still it's clear that my management skills are not top notch and I didn't hire right people.

We are building a (fairly expensive) desktop software in a quite niche area, releasing about 4 updates per year and it's been about 2 years we are doing this.

russell• 16 years ago

That is a killer release cycle. It is a inefficient as hell. It encourages people to hide in the long deadline. Switch to 2 week releases, even if it is only internal. Eventually switch to two week releases to customers. They will get new goodies every two weeks and they wont have to wait months for bug fixes. Who knows, the discipline might solve part of your problem.

bartl• 16 years ago

I have been on the other side. I'd like to think of myself as an excellent programmer, but occasionally I'm hard to motivate myself.

The main reasons for that is that the job is boring, and the feeling of getting nowhere, being stuck. The thing that motivates me the most is the feeling of getting things done, fast.

In other words: it's a vicious circle. People are demotivated because they are in a rut, and people work fast because they get results, fast.

The best thing to do now, to get them out of the rut, is to stay on top of them. Deadlines are meaningful only if they are real deadlines, like "this feature must be done by next week", and not some artificial goal like "work on this for 30 hours". BTW 30 hours for a single task is much too long, it should be broken up in smaller tasks. Set real short term goals. And if they are getting nowhere because there is something that they cannot finish, you may switch tasks, so they get something new to do, instead of just continuing working on the same old. Let a few people work on one task together, I've noticed that often that is a motivation booster, myself. But always: small, meaningful goals.

And, yeah, I agree with the others: switching to new people will not help, though it might seem to do so temporarily, for as long as those new people are new to the tasks. Once they get in a rut, it's back to the old situation.

bmj• 16 years ago

I agree. My current project was turning into a bit of death march (due to a number factors), and I was finding motivation hard to come by. My manager decided that we would begin doing "pre-releases" to QC in order to give them a chance to kick the tires before writing all their test cases. This has been a huge help to my motivation. Now our goals are "get these bits of functionality into the weekly build" instead of "get this massive app done by the end of the quarter."

trebor• 16 years ago

The second best thing to do is watch for creeping featurism. If you're setting and holding them to deadlines for things that aren't of any importance, or that a client hasn't shown a need for, perhaps you should table it for later.

olsonea• 16 years ago

I am fascinated that in this economy, employees need motivation beyond the length of the unemployment line.

firingtest21• 16 years ago

Tell me about it, IT industry (I know from myself) is so spoiled because generally it's rather easy to find jobs.

A1kmm• 16 years ago

Nudging them to get things done is to be expected for many employees - it is considered good management practice by many. They are employees, not founders, and you should expect them to need some nudging - the solution is to develop processes to give them the nudging they need to make them worth what you pay them to you.

I'd suggest calling all 8 for 5-10 minutes a day (it's less than an hour of work - if you don't have time for that, appoint someone else with the skills as manager). Ask them for a brief verbal description of how they are going, what problems they are facing, and what worked. Make it mainly positive - praise them for what they have done, guide them on what needs to be done, and if needed, gently reprimand them if something isn't so good. Keep it short and focus on the needs of the business and give them autonomy when possible, unless they need more help.

If you find that, even when properly managed as above, performance means they are not worth what you pay them, schedule an in-person meeting or if that is impossible, a call. Tell them their continued employment is at risk, and let them bring a representative if they want. Make sure you observe all employment law and contract terms applicable to you. At the meeting, explain that their current performance is making them a drag on the business, and explain exactly why. Give them plenty of time to explain themselves. Then, ask them how they can improve their performance. Set achievable milestones at the meeting for them to step up their performance to a reasonable level that everyone is happy with. For coders, that could be a list of tasks to finish, with times they will finish them by. Ask them if there is anything you can do to help them improve - and if it is reasonable, do it.

If they don't meet the performance targets, and don't have a good enough reason, then you can think about dismissal (in accordance with their contract terms and applicable employment law).

Dismissing so many people is going to kill morale at your startup - if it looks like you have to, you might be better off trying to start a new one, sell assets to the new one, hire the good ones, and wind up the first startup making everyone redundant (to the extent that is legally possible). If the first startup is financially solvent, you can sell assets (e.g. your codebase, trademarks etc...) to the new one.

If you do hire people, the most important thing is to get someone who knows the field the potential hiree is in to assist with the interviewing. Ignore bits of paper like qualifications or resumes, except to screen out candidates who don't even claim skills you need. Don't believe anything in a CV or that any qualification means they know anything you need - ask them to solve a task that would take a good employee an hour for you, and rate their work. Also look for experience that is actually proven - working in a team for a big company doesn't prove much, even with references. Look for good quality Free / Open Source code (actually look through the revision history, and check the quality of their commits), or successful projects where they were obviously behind it (a history of consulting as sole programmer on different successful jobs for one business could be good evidence).

robryan• 16 years ago

It's ok to work remotely but I don't know if I could have a case where it was all remote working and never meeting up, as a long term employee, not sure about the situation here. Even if it was only every 6 months or a year a meetup could put everyone on the same page and identify these problems far better than you can remotely.

Devilboy• 16 years ago

Firing so many people is scary for the remaining employees. Just fire the worst offender and hire a replacement. That might be enough to turn the team around.

lsc4• 16 years ago

the danger is that if you do have to fire 5 people, firing one person a month is going to be worse for morale than firing five at once, then making it clear you are done.

Now, I'm the first to say that I might be wrong, but my feeling, from the original story, is that this guy simply doesn't know how to manage in a way that would help those 5 people work more effectively. I doubt that just upping the fear level a little would change that.

Really, I say that without any negative judgment towards the original poster or towards the employees in question... different people are capable of different kinds of management, and different people are capable of working under different kinds of management. It's quite easy to have a competent manager and a competent employee, and to have a matchup that produces zero work due to conflicts in style.

firingtest21• 16 years ago

We are tech company, we don't even have sales or marketing department. We do awesome products and people love it. That's how we do and sell.

Normally I'm not a manager just an passionate engineer however setting up your own company generally makes you an instant manager.

Can't I find 5 more people who can work without nudging instead of hiring a useless person (read: manager) to just nudge people?

Or do you think finding 5 new people who fits the bill is harder than finding one manager who can nudge people.

radu_floricica• 16 years ago

Motivating telecommuting programmers is a big issue for startups. If you manage to do it properly, please come back and tell us.

lsc4• 16 years ago

first, you will have to nudge nearly everyone you hire. this is part of managing people. get over it, and learn how to nudge effectively. Note, each person requires a different kind of nudge, but nearly everyone requires at least a little. Employees who don't need those nudges are very rare, and become expensive quickly. If you have lucked into one, keep them happy. (note, though, my experience has been that while these sorts make incredible individual contributors, they generally make poor managers.)

Next, though, you do sometimes have to fire people. this is the way it is. If you don't know how to nudge those 5 under performers into performing well, and you are unwilling or unable to figure out how to do so, you will have to fire them, even though they probably could have performed acceptably under different management. Let them go and hopefully they will find a place where they fit.

As others pointed out, this will kill morale at your startup. Do it quickly and respectfully, and maybe give your best people raises or bonuses at the same time. The big danger here is that your best people will leave at this time, so take extra care with the people you want to keep.

Me, when I fire people, I try to frame it as my fault. I mean, I hired the guy, right? and it's my job to manage them. If they didn't work out, I think it's best all around if I publicly and sincerely accept the fault. And really, it's best if I think it's my fault. I mean, I can change my behavior; if I can learn how to hire better or manage better in the future, that's a big win. Feeling ripped off by an employee, on the other hand, is almost never productive.

It's best to remember that in other situations, these people might be pretty good. I certainly know I'm not the best manager in the world. There is no reason to make this any more painful than it has to be, and really, there is no reason to publicly say anything bad about these people. You will meet these people later in your career, and your employees will maintain personal relationships with some of these people, so the better you can have them think of you, the better off you are.

If you can spare the cash, give them some severance. Even a week or two is a lot better than nothing (and in the startup world, a lot more than the employees probably expect.)

Now, when it comes to hiring; what I do is that I make it clear it's a contract assignment, at first, without any expectation of continued employment. If they don't work out, there's no more work. I pay them and we part friends. If they do, I can slowly work towards an expectation of longer term employment.

As for telecommute vs. office, well, it really takes a specific personality type to telecommute effectively. I recently got an office, and I note a marked improvement in productivity both from my PFY and from myself, on days when we both decide not to work from home.

mattm• 16 years ago

OT but as an employee/contractor, I'm interested in what you wrote here:

  Employees who don't need those nudges are very rare, and become expensive quickly

Could you elaborate on this? Are these employees just able to take specs and implement them on their own timetable? I would consider myself in this category - I currently telecommute and can go for days without any communication with the manager but still get things done. I just want to see if I am in that category from another person's point of view or see what else I can do to improve.

lsc4• 16 years ago

yeah. well, you need someone like you, and you need a manager who is good at communicating specs, and the manager needs to be okay that the end result will still be slightly different from his or her 'vision'

But yeah, it's pretty rare to have someone who keeps working hard on their own. it's more rare that the result looks anything like what the manager had in mind when they drafted the specs.

If you are one of those people, you should be able to charge a significant premium for your time. You are worth it. Now, the hard part here is that it's hard to prove you are one of those people without actually working for someone; still, if you are what you say you are, you should be able to build yourself a high-priced consulting business.

1gor• 16 years ago

I had a small telecommuting team once, and what helped us a lot were two pieces of technology around which our development process was built.

The first one was a simple issue tracker. The 'nudging' and 'motivating' bit became almost redundant. There always was a list of issues that needed to be addressed one by one, and the employees could work on the simplest ones, or on the complex ones, depending on their skill level and personal energy level at the time.

The second piece was the idea of short 'sprints' we borrowed from the Scrum process. Each week we aimed to deliver something that worked, so there was a set of issues that needed to be addressed as a matter of a priority. In this way the team stayed motivated and saw results of their work, i.e. there was an (almost) instant gratification.

Interestingly, one of my developers was a 'star', and another was a 'rookie', but they found a happy balance under this system. The experienced one tackled complex/architecture related issues and avoided the boring simple tasks which the less experienced employee was happy to do because that kept him feeling productive and contributing.

The management process consisted of a weekly skype conference call where we would agree on a issue set for the next 'sprint', and then we simply communicated through email to check on the progress during the week and to address problems. Obviously, I had to write up the requirements (in the form of issue tickets) as well.

Again, a simple issue tracker (we used Roundup) was the single most useful management tool for that project.

charliepark3• 16 years ago

Do you know if there are any screenshots of Roundup? Hadn't heard of it before this, and am intrigued, but the SourceForge page doesn't list any images of it in action.

bockris• 16 years ago

http://bugs.python.org/ is running a customized version of Roundup.

Source is here. http://svn.python.org/view/tracker/roundup-src/

auxbuss4• 16 years ago

I've done similar. Last couple of years I've been using Redmine for issue tracking. (Hint: Run under JRuby with glassfish gem and don't use sqlite.)

IM has generally worked better than email, prefering to keep useful chunky data in redmine as a "knowledge base". IM has also worked to keep the users involved.

firingtest21• 16 years ago

We do many of these, however we don't focus on weekly tangible results which is a really important point and can motivate the team a lot. One of the problems that we don't do web startup which means whatever we do, it'll be generally delivered to the end user at least 2 months later, but still seeing something get done is a good way to be motivated.

scorpion032• 16 years ago

It is your job, as a leader to make sure the team performs well.

No one, themselves want to perform bad. If I am spending my time on something, or if I am committed to something, I might as well do very well in that time.

But sometimes, performance is bad. Not because one cant or one isn't interested but because there is some thing preventing one from doing it. It could be a personal problem, but more likely a communication gap or some cultural difference.

Most people do something because they feel like it and not necessarily because they have to do it. It is your job as an employer to ensure that they feel like it. This is exactly where the company culture, peer performance review and the like help a lot.

Or you might as well hire self motivating individuals, far too little, generally.

pvg• 16 years ago

I think at 5 out 8 it's not a mere firing, it's a bloodbath. If you've built any kind of team cohesion, you'd be throwing it all away. Obviously, if they're all critically detrimental to your business, fire the lot and eat the hit. Have you considered firing maybe 1 or 2 and seeing if it improves the performance, overall?

firingtest21• 16 years ago

Actually I wasn't considering this but you and many others in here pointed out mass firing would be very bad with very good reasons. Now I changed my mind about this, even if I finalize my decision on firing it'll be worst to better in every 2 months (unless they change in the middle).

Goladus4• 16 years ago

I actually think dragging it out over several months would be even worse. I wouldn't fire more than 2 that way. Your good employees will be wondering if they are next and if they should be polishing their resume (which they'll do instead of work you need done)

neilk• 16 years ago

Do not do this. One firing is bad. Multiple firings drawn out over time make people feel like the project is doomed.

Even if the people deserve to be fired, then people will be blaming you for hiring the wrong people or being indecisive.

vegai2• 16 years ago

All telecommuting? You mean they hardly ever see each other or you?

I'm surprised they're doing anything at all.

Are they from the same country as you?

firingtest21• 16 years ago

Different countries.

I'm a bit lost though, I thought in HN many people thought that telecommuting was way to go and there are cool companies such as 37Signals rocking by telecommuting.

Am I missing something? Are those all lies, or do HNers generally love telecommuting because they can slack off as an employee? Or maybe that was only me and pretty much everyone thinks telecommuting is a bad idea.

japherwocky2• 16 years ago

it's kind of split, but a lot of HNers think that telecommuting isn't optimal.

(Personally, I disagree ;)

vegai2• 16 years ago

I wouldn't say they're lies... Telecommuting is great when it works. Here are some ways to help it not work:

1. Fail to create a real working relationship while working. This easily happens when the telecommuting is reaching 100%.

2. Fail to take into account cultural differences. There are big differences in how people can handle poorly defined tasks.

3. Use telecommuting as primarily a way to drive down the prices.

jhrobert• 16 years ago

1/ Install agile process:

issue tracker (fix bugs first),

CI,

weekly deliverable,

daily short conference call: what's up? what's next? any block?

Loop Hire a new fellow, based on github track record Wait a while. Fire the most damaging.

Repeat until you'r happy

skowmunk2• 16 years ago

Somehow I see some red flags. If they are getting well paid, happy with business and are honest about their own negative performance evaluation, I doubt if the problem is on their side, unless they were technically not upto the mark to begin with.

Even if thats the case, where they are lacking in technical competency, if I can afford, I would love to have such a honest team and would rather work with them to help them reach higher levels of performance. It can result in an inspired and loyal team - please note, it is 'can' and not 'will'.

Even the best team will fail, if the system and expectations in which they work is not set up right. By 'system' I would also include, the goal setting, delegating of responsibilities, method of checking accountability, the method and tone of communications, etc.

I consider its the leader's personal responsibility that the 'system' is set up right and keeps getting fixed and mended when required.

Though I would prefer a non-telecommuting team as I think it has some strong inherent advantages, a successful telecommuting team is not impossible. I have been running a telecommuting team (programming team + testing/requirements team) for around 8 months and am very happy with the way they work. Now I don't even have to intervene, just tell them what feature to work on, and they coordinate with each other and get it done real fast. (Partly, luck is involved, was able to get some really good programming lead and testing lead)

But, there was this instance soon after the testing lead came in. There was this exchange of emails between him and the programming lead over some misunderstanding and they were going on back and forth on whom to blame between the two. I could foresee it screwing up rapport between them with long term ramifications for me, stepped in right away, took the blame for the misunderstanding ( I think I did have some responsibility for that), so that they can focus on fixing the problem and move forward. It worked.

A bit later, I wrote up and sent some philosophical crap to both, about all of us being imperfect and all the great things in the world getting built by imperfect people and systems. ( I do believe that crap though :) ). Its been more or less smooth sailing since.

If the problem is indeed with the people then firing may be a good solution. But if the system is the problem, you will be having the same problem again. So do check if the problem is with the system.

If you do have to resort to firing, try one at a time but for a definite and solid reason and communicate that reason to others. That single firing itself can bring about positive changes in thinking, actions and performance for the rest, provided the system was not the problem.

Mass or in-explained firings will bring down the morale and can also bring down your credibility with your remaining and new employees. I have seen it happen.

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to share my perspectives and experiences in case it helps.

Good luck.

petervandijck• 16 years ago

Sometimes you do have to fire people. Have you fired someone before? If not, fire 1 person, the worst performer. Then have a talk with the others. But be careful.

Also, it looks like you hired badly. Hiring is hard, consider it a lesson and work really hard on doing better next time.

backroomcoder• 16 years ago

Is there an opportunity to get everybody in the same physical location for a day? Either way, maybe it would be good for you to have a clear the air session, communicate vision/direction/expectations, allow them to communicate their issues with you etc. In my experience as a manager, when I see team performance start dipping etc.. then I start to identify why and maybe introduce new ways of doing things, i.e. keep reinvigorating the team. Communication is vital in your team; have short audios on a daily basis if you can afford it. Keep track of issues. Inject some spirit into your team.

Goladus4• 16 years ago

I couldn't offer advice on whether or not to fire without criteria more specific than 'performance'. Presumably, you aren't hiring people to perform you're hiring them to get a job done-- and what specifically about that job has not been done that you need done?

Unclear expectations and confusing priorities can make motivation very difficult. You use the term 'performance' 5 times and I still haven't the slightest idea what these guys are supposed to be producing except that they are "technical." I understand you don't want to be identified and that's fine, but if you use this kind of imprecise language with your employees, they'll just nod and vaguely agree to get through the conversation. Five minutes later they'll realize the conversation was completely pointless.

firingtest21• 16 years ago

I used bad performance to define:

Not doing their job which is tickets assigned them (coding, testing, building, buying groceries etc.)

So we do have a clear definition of what needs to be done, and it's also clear that who's doing it and who's not. Only question in here might what's the accepted amount of tasks done. Like does this ticket takes an hour for X and a day for Y. In either case (Y is slacking or it takes a day for him) he's an incompetent employee and needs to go. Am I missing something?

Goladus4• 16 years ago

Like does this ticket takes an hour for X and a day for Y.

Out of context, comparisons like this are meaningless. Maybe the ticket took a long time for Y because he was assigned 30 tickets and spent most of the day suffering paralysis of choice, maybe that particular subject is difficult for him but he has other strengths. When you blamed him for it his knee-jerk response was to get defensive and make excuses (eg personal life problems).

japherwocky2• 16 years ago

From the perspective of someone who's been telecommuting for the past year-ish: if they admit that their performance problems are personal, and it's just a lack of discipline on their part, maybe they're not cut out for it.

You've got to be able to ignore sunny days and log some productive hours, and if you can't you're not cut out for telecommuting. And if you've got this culture of being lazy and not taking deadlines / goals seriously, the 3 competent guys are going to realize at some point that they have no real motivation for being competent.

I'd make an example of one of the peons, give the 3 a token raise/reward, and have a chat about what's acceptable and professional.

And if you're looking for a contract guy who can deliver, shoot me an email ;)

brixon• 16 years ago

Firing 5 out of 8 people is an indicator that you are not good at hiring or not good at managing them.

Try these podcasts, they talk about both topics. http://www.manager-tools.com/

redtexture• 16 years ago

Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror has some perspective: "On Working Remotely" http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/05/on-working-remotely...

A lead-in quotation: "I have learned a few things about what it means to work remotely -- at least when it comes to programming. Our current team encompasses 5 people, distributed all over the USA, along with the team in NYC."

c00p3r• 16 years ago

I thing you should start a hiring process and make it visible and obvious to everyone. Start interviewing young guys and make it clear, that you will replace anyone when you will find a better performer.

Make it clear that you want to establish a competition, and reward only the best performers. Consider a football team as a model.

Then replace just one worst guy with a young and ambitious geek - it will be a bold and clear message to rest of your team.

DanielBMarkham• 16 years ago

Telecommuting has real problems, especially when it's a larger team (8+ is a large team in this situation) There'e a real danger of an "us versus them" mentality setting up, from everyone involved.

First, assume the team is intelligent and wants to produce.

Second, establish a backlog and have clear weekly items that need to be completed. The team gets to decide which ones they can complete -- or not.

Third, make it clear that they can screw it up for a couple of weeks, but no more. There will not be a third week of dissapointment. (But you may be dissapointed with what they say they can do for each week. Different topic) The team will be judged as a group, not individually.

Then get out of their way and let them work it out.

At the end of the day, however, you're probably best off sacking just about everybody. The ones who are not performing are in a rut, the ones who are performing probably have copped an attitude, and your ability to interact and work with a telecommuting team has probably developed some seriously bad edges.

Can't sack yourself, though. But whatever you do, heck if I'd start right back up with the telecommuting. Bring the new team in for 90 days of intense working together. Stick with the weekly goals thing. Get a development rhythm going. Learn who is good at what. Learn how different people communicate when there are problems. Get a pattern of folks helping each other out. Then slowly transition folks out to telecommuting status.

I trust the team above everything else, but you can get teams into places they don't come out from. Assuming you're writing the checks, this is serious stuff. I sure wouldn't be asking HN for advice (including asking me. Although I do this for a living, there's a tremendous amount of contextual information I do not have) If it's as bad as you say, you've got some tough choices ahead. I also wouldn't put a lot of money on your perception of the problem -- you're just as mixed up in whatever problems there are as the rest of them. [insert long discussion about the benefit of using outside eyeballs, which, unfortunately, is a conflict of interest for me to give. I apologize.]

wglb• 16 years ago

I once ran a project with four contractors working remotely. My previous management experience was not remote, and I generally chatted with each person each day. So part of the setup was that I spoke by phone with each person each day just to keep the channel open both ways. I also required an email report from each person each day. Finally, we held a weekly meeting in person, which worked because we were geographically close.

The other thing I insisted on when assembling a team was that they had a room in their house that they called their office and that it had a door.

Not everyone can handle telecommuting, and sometimes the bandwidth of detail/culture/chatter is not enough to sustain the good productive relationship.

You should strongly consider Campfire. This will support communication necessary for remote working. Make the presence in the campfire room required.

oceanician• 16 years ago

Get an office. Have regular meet-ups.

I heard of one telecommuting company who flew everyone to one location every couple of months, and he reported great productivity increases.

What are you doing to increase moral?

Are you providing regular thought out requirements? Tied together with some sort of joined up thinking - not just random whims. Nothing worse than them getting a part requiremnt, you expecting them to get on with it, and then you moaning at what they've produced. Either be available to talk through requirements ALL the time when someone is working on a unit of work, or provide solid requirements.

Are you having regular releases? Something to celebrate. Nothing more demoralising than endless todos. Do you have a goal for your current iteration? Do you have development iterations? (fortnightly or weekly sprints seem to work well for a lot of people) What are you doing to mark the end of the week? One telecommuting company I know has a virtual beer together, on a Friday at the same time, to review the weeks progress. Have you provided an environment to screen share with ease? Essential for talking through how to approach a problem, or figuring out why something isn't working.

Hmm. I work in an office. I'm about 2000% (add more zeros) more productive than at home. I'm sure you'll get plenty of advice off actual telecommuters.

clueless123• 16 years ago

5 out of 8 bad apples? Have you considered you might have a leadership issue here ?

Regardless if your team is local or telecommuting, treat them professionally, be clear, honest and shoot straight with no politics.

Also, be sure that you are asking people to do things they can actually achieve and that the tasks are "around" their skill level (so they don't get bored to death)

TheSOB88• 16 years ago

This might sound like a cop-out response, but I'm reading Switch by ChipDan Heath and I think it'd help you out. It's a new perspective on getting change to stick. One idea I really liked is "focusing on the bright spots" - figuring out what's working about the people who are performing much better than the others, and figuring out how to make this happen for the underperformers. For example, maybe you could ask the overachievers exactly what they're doing to manage their time, and compare that with the others.

It sounds like the underachievers want to be good employees, but you have to figure out how to get them in that direction.

arethuza• 16 years ago

Have you ever sat yourself down and considered whether you aren't the problem?

If you know someone who you regard as a good manager, try and persuade them to come in for a couple of days (pay them for this, obviously) and do a sanity check on your management style.

I had management coaching years ago and the results were pretty hard to take - but it was an invaluable experience for me.

Tautologistics• 16 years ago

I know this is a throwaway account and you cannot get too detailed about the nature of the work but if you do decide to start over, I might be interested in applying if my skills fit the job.

firingtest21• 16 years ago

If you are great at .NET and WinForms please write your email in here and I'll email to you.

sleight42• 16 years ago

I've worked remotely for about four years now: two as a part-time remote worker, one as an employee telecommuter, and one as a freelance developer and manager.

Yes, it truly does take a special kind of person to be successful working remotely. <b>It requires a strong work ethic<b>: an internal sense of accountability that persists in the absence of coworkers.

However, let's be realistic here. Most people that you will hire don't have this.

Those people who have that internal drill sergeant can get be successful by themselves. They don't need you. If you have people like this, you need to do everything in your power to enable them, make them happy, and get out of their way.

Management "tricks" that you cite in the comments (e.g., "time tracking, semi-micro management, constant reporting or leaving them more space, trying to get excited with new technical bits, giving them bonus, cutting their salary etc., pep talk, pissed-off talk") just aren't going to work.

Here's why: you don't understand what motivates these people. This is not your fault. Understanding people is hard. I'm no guru either. ;)

About a year in, this is where I found "Agile Retrospectives". This is a technique to actively engage the whole team in solving the team's problems.

Essentially, these are brainstorming sessions, sometimes emotionally charged, that give you and the team the opportunity to air tough problems and feelings, come up with plans to resolve them, and check on the progress of their resolution.

Management is a skill; it takes time and many errors to learn how to do it at all well. Can you afford those errors with this team and this project? If not, "fire yourself" as the manager, as you suggested at one point, and find someone who can do it for you.

If I wasn't completely booked right now, I'd love to help you and your team on an ongoing basis. Still, if you want someone's brain to pick, feel free to mail me at evan AT tripledogdare DOT net.

michaelhalligan• 16 years ago

Think of it the other way .. Should you fire yourself for doing a bad job of recruiting and building team?

agentultra• 16 years ago

Responsibility is key for me. I'm motivated when I can make a decision and the team is relying on me to follow through on my word. It's a matter of professional pride.

Give them ownership over their work. Give them responsibility and accountability. Give specialists control over key components and more generalized people doing design, issue management, and supporting the specialists. I find that I perform better when I feel like my reputation is on the line.

On the contrary, I've been on projects where the responsibility and decisions were made by the managers. Any criticism, idea, or suggestion I had to contribute didn't really matter. We eventually did finish these projects through, but not without a lot of resentment. In these types of situations its easy (and justified) for employees to blame management when things start to go wrong. They had no say and therefore have no reason to feel accountable. If you're a manager and you start firing people in this situation, the rest will just end up quitting. Those who stay will have nothing good to say and are probably only there because they have dependants. So good luck with that route.

Telecommuting generally isn't the issue. It's only an issue for people inexperienced at it: they don't realize that the wife may ask you to do chores in the middle of the day or that their pets will continually break their attention. Experienced people know to keep a separate room as their office and let the people they live with know that they're not to be bothered during working hours and especially when the door is closed.

So obviously I recommend shifting the balance of ownership and accountability to the team. If there are still people who continually fall through on their promises or whose decisions continually fall short of their expectations, then you know who to talk to and possibly fire; and so does the team -- so if the axe does fall, everyone knows why. This will go a long way to protecting morale.

TWAndrews• 16 years ago

Do they know that they are in danger of being fired? The prospect of unemployment is definitely something that can focus the mind.

If you haven't given them a clear indication that their performance is unacceptable and that a continuation of said unacceptable performance will get them canned, do so. Hopefully in some of the cases, you'll see an improvement. Others you'll probably have to fire.

firingtest21• 16 years ago

Some of them know, couple of them quite new hires who started with a very bad performance (I've no clue how the hell this is possible! - maybe my fault)

Also I openly discussed all these issues and invite them to find a solution all together. So far not going well.

In some cases after being informed of possible serious consequences their performance got back to normal for a month or two then cycle repeated itself. So maybe every 2 months I should remind them that they very close to getting sacked.

vessenes• 16 years ago

You sprinkle your comments throughout, so I'll just shoot my general perspective over to you rather than reply piece by piece.

In my opinion, you have a serious problem on your hands. The first issue is that you don't know if the problem is you, your team, or one that you created with your team.

I think you need to get that sorted first -- the suggestions for a mentor to come in and spend a day or two with you are spot on. Do this first, because if you choose the wrong option above, you're going to be in for some horrible pain, much worse than you are now.

You reference telecommuting and said you thought telecommuting was the 'way to go.' Here's my experience: I managed a technology startup in an office for nine years with no telecommuters, and have since done three years of management of remote teams, working out of an office and at home, so I've been on both sides of this.

Whatever 37Signals seems to imply on their blog posts, remote management of knowledge workers is more challenging than in-office management. (And, I'm sure that they would agree with this statement, by the way). There is one exception to this rule: it is if the team is self-motivated, self-organizing and has good chemistry and an excellent remote decision making process.

Something many entrepreneurs miss (or at least that I missed for many years) is that not everyone wants to be an entrpreneur. Whatever else may be true about your company, I know from your descriptions that your employees don't want to be entrepreneurs. They want to be salaried employees, I'm sure with bonuses and stock if possible.

When you read about how telecommuting rocks, and the team just works really hard and talks all the time using skype or iChat, etc. etc., and there is no management overhead and no wasted time, and people are naturally agile, and everything is awesome, you are reading about a group of people who all wanted to be entrepreneurs and found each other online.

You're not in that situation; instead you're in a more-challenging-than-usual management situation where you can't evaluate body language, team dynamics, emotional affect, work groupings (as in who works well with whom). All that has to be inferred or discovered or just left as a mystery. In all likelihood, you have a seriously toxic work environment on your hands, one that is negatively impacting your 'good' employees as well as the 'problem ones.'

Now, to solutions:

If the problem is mostly you, and you actually generally have good people, you're lucky! You can work extra hard at becoming a better manager. There are lots of great suggestions here, including more frequent short one-on-one meetings, providing better work structure for employees and getting some management coaching. Do all of these. Also, start reading some business books about management, rather than just HN, as great as it is. There are many, many excellent management books (and, sadly a whole load of total crap) at the bookstore; go browse and buy four or five. Read them. Talk about them with your coach or mentor. Implement. You'll probably find you need to sort some things out with some of your employees. Do that. You'll probably find you can't live with some of your employees, even with your new management skills. Have them leave, but do so in a respectful way. Things will improve.

Now, if (as seems likely to me), you've participated in creating a problematic culture, you have some more work ahead of you: you're going to have to manage your company back around to a better culture, without losing half your team.

Consider: could the half you want to get rid of re-implement your technology? Since they work in different countries, would you have a legal solution to that? If the answers are: 'yes' and 'hmm....', tread carefully!

If instead you have a lock on the technology and you know you need a reset, you should process this, first with your most trusted senior employee. Tell them you're considering a reset because you're convinced the culture is not solvable. (Note that you definitely owe it to your employees to work on your own management needs before you go down this path.) Get their feedback, it will be instructive. Work together to get a transition plan in place.

I have more thoughts in this vein, but perhaps you get the thrust of my opinions. Best of luck.

willheim• 16 years ago

Read "Making Ideas Happen" by Scott Belsky. I am in the same position as you and have picked up some wonderful ideas from that book.

First: Nag, nag, nag! You say nudge, I say NAG! Nagging works as people just want to get you to shut it and they know the only way to do that is to get the task done.

Second: Are you absolutely clear in your goals and have you assembled a team which is aligned with those goals?

Third: There's the old adage of hire slow and fire fast. If you have done everything with one of the team members to get them on board and they still refuse to align with the team goals then you must let them go.

dusklight• 16 years ago

All getting well paid .. are they getting any equity? Do they make more (meaningfully more) money if they do a good job? What incentives do they have to do a better job other than not being fired?

Are you sure of the reasons why their performance is bad? Are you sure it is not the case that you are giving them bad instructions, and they are following them as best they can, but because the instructions are bad the overall product is bad, and when you ask them about it, they decide to agree with you that their performance is bad, rather than telling you the truth that it is all your fault, because they don't want to anger you and risk getting fired?

firingtest21• 16 years ago

> are they getting any equity? Do they make more (meaningfully more) money if they do a good job?

No, I understand this can be a problem but at the same time I don't see a good reason to give them equity. I might give them equity and then get the bad performance again then I'll be a total idiot.

> Are you sure of the reasons why their performance is bad?

No I'm not but I've tried hard to figure out and so far couldn't pin point.

> because they don't want to anger you and risk getting fired?

I don't think so as I openly discussed the matter and tried to change how we work to fix this problem by their suggestions. So they know if they think something will work better I'll go with that. For example with one of them we were doing daily reviews then he wanted to weekly and thought it'd be better. I agreed and didn't bother him for a week. Result same.

skowmunk2• 16 years ago

I agree with what russell says, systemic discipline or the lack of it could be a problem here.

Try this:

Have

1)long term deadlines, (Quarterly?)

2)mid term deadlines (Monthly?)

3)short term deadlines (Weekly?)

At least on a weekly basis, review the deadlines and tasks with the team/functional leaders, and see if there are any issues that would prevent any of the deadlines from being met. If there are such issues, then brainstorm for solutions and then follow up.

Keep following up on fixed schedules and keep asking for reasons if any of the deadlines are not being met.

In fact, a better idea would be to let the team decide on the deadlines and commit themselves to delivering them. If they are too loose, push for tighter deadlines (over time anybody would develop a good sense of judging the deadlines - if they are too loose). That can make them push themselves hard when required to deliver by their own deadlines and they do get a sense of achievement.

And do your part to be the facilitator, to help them reach those deadlines. It could mean to provide hard resources, soft resources, to iron out political problems, to be a cheerleader, a hard driver/nudger, be a sounding board or whatever you need to be to help them deliver those deliverables.

Other than the work/task ownership aspect, another reason why I prefer this approach is, often the ones with hands on experience are the ones best qualified to estimate the effort required.

At least thats the way I prefer to work. Keeps the management time overhead low too (relatively)

Ask HN: Should I fire half of my team because their performance is terrible?

Related Stories