An article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows why it is important to get rid of your problem employees:

It took the death of Darlene Dukes for a 911 operator to finally lose her job in Fulton County.

Gina Conteh survived nearly 12 years handling emergency calls despite a personnel record that includes fights with co-workers, chronic tardiness, insubordination, repeated sleeping on the job and numerous mistakes routing emergency calls.

Does this remind you of someone in your dealership?  From time to time, we all hire someone who is difficult to work with.  Sometimes we hang onto them because we don’t want the confrontation or we don’t want a lawsuit.  Apparently, Fulton County 911 did not face up to the problem.  In fact, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Ms. Conteh had amassed a 2100 page personnel file!

But what are the consequences of letting bad employees stay in your business?  Bad employees can make life miserable for your good employees and for your customers.  In fact, I think that the erosive effect on other employees is probably worse than the direct effect on customers because it tends to compound poor customer service.  

Do you really gain anything by not facing up to the problem?  I don’t know of any studies on the topic, but I would bet that you have a much lower chance of being sued if you terminate a problem employee within the first few months of employment.  At least that was my experience.  I terminated a lot of employees as soon as it seemed that they were not going to work out, and they never sued us.  The ones that sue you are the bad ones who hang around for ten years.  Incidentally, Ms. Conteh is appealing her termination from Fulton County 911.

Do yourself a favor – in fact, do a favor for your customers and your employees.  Get rid of your bad employees promptly.  Don’t let them poison the well.  

“911 operator had history of errors, sleeping on job” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Aug. 13, 2008; “911 operator appeals her firing,”  Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Aug. 14, 2008 (Registration required)