![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Marginal Staff |
Dear Dave What’s becoming clear to us over the past several months is that in our zeal to fill openings, we have not always done a good job of adequately screening new hires and have ended up somewhat compromising our historical standards. As a result, we find ourselves with some marginal people we should not have hired in the first place, but they are here now and doing the best they can, and while we know deep down that we should let them go, we are just so busy we don’t see how we can cut them loose. We want you to talk us into doing the right thing and going
ahead anyway to clean house. How about liability? Can you really afford to expose your firm to the increased risk of loss associated with having substandard people working on projects? How about the cost of alienating clients who become disenchanted with the work product or service experience of dealing with your sub-par staff? That’s great that you have more work than you want at the moment, but what are you going to do when the inevitable next downturn hits and you have to overcome a soiled reputation at the very same time you find yourself scratching for work? Finally, why waste this wonderful opportunity to upgrade and reshape your client base? If you have more work than you need, start saying no, raise your fees, or tighten your terms as a way to discourage marginal clients while you part ways with your questionable staff. Re-size your client base and the practice to what is appropriate and reasonable for the volume of work you can handle given the fully qualified people you can assemble and bring to bear. There is no glory in getting big for the sake of being big. |
![]() |