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INNOVATION
& DESIGN Home Page Architecture Brand Equity Auto Design Game Room SMALLBIZ Smart Answers Success Stories Today's Tip INVESTING Investing: Europe Annual Reports BW 50 S&P Picks & Pans Stock Screeners Free S&P Stock Report SCOREBOARDS Hot Growth 100 Mutual Funds Info Tech 100 S&P 500 B-SCHOOLS Undergrad Programs MBA Blogs MBA Profiles MBA Rankings Who's Hiring Grads | | SEPTEMBER 15, 2000 NET JOURNAL When Parting Is the Best Solution Whether or not to shed a problematic -- but productive -- employee isn't an easy choice
 For the last three months, we have been dealing with a delicate situation that I thought might be of interest to other entrepreneurs. This is an example that proves the rule that people issues are the most difficult to handle.
Sean (not his real name) was a recently hired local agent for our company. He had many years of real estate experience and was very excited about zipRealty. During our interview, I could see that Sean was going to be a good fit for us because of his real estate knowledge, local expertise, enthusiasm for the company, and relationship with another person at zipRealty. Following the interview, we made an offer, and in the next few days Sean accepted. After one week of training, everyone on the team was encouraged by how quickly Sean learned the systems. We sent him back to his area with a car, computer, and all the zipTools he would need. Not surprisingly, he started off with a bang. In the first couple weeks, Sean was obtaining listings in his marketplace and closing deals. Customers sent e-mails commending his service, and the agents in our headquarters really enjoyed working with him. Sean's future looked very bright. NIGHT RIDES. Only a month later, things started to change. We were getting word back from people in his area that Sean wasn't following our rules regarding the use of the company car. People would see it at night in front of clubs and bars, and send us e-mails inquiring about it. We talked with Sean about this problem, and he said he was visiting friends in the neighborhood. We reminded him of our policy concerning company cars and their use (no parking in bad areas and no drinking and driving). Sean said he understood completely. Still, the issue made us do some checking to see if there were any other problems. Unfortunately, a Department of Motor Vehicles inquiry indicated that Sean had a poor driving record. We were supposed to check this when we hired him. But typically in a startup, some checks slip through the cracks, and that one got past us. Since working in his area required driving the zipMobile (zip company car) daily, it was absolutely necessary that anyone in Sean's position have an impeccable driving record. Once we received the DMV information, we knew Sean had a problem. INTRACTABLE. Normally, these types of indicators make any decision for separation easy. Our dilemma was that during the day, Sean was excelling in his job and was well liked in the company. One of our core values is that people are our most valuable asset. This just wasn't an easy decision, and we held numerous meetings to decide how to proceed. After a few interviews with Sean and making some other inquiries, we discovered that his behavior with the car wasn't changing and that no programs we initiated seemed able to overcome his inability to work diligently to improve the problem. Another core value of our company is "integrity in all we do," and without that, we couldn't go anywhere with Sean. In the end, we sent a couple of people from the company to talk with Sean and end his employment. While this put us in a hole in that market and was disappointing to the staff, it was the correct long-term decision to ensure that we wouldn't compromise the company's reputation in the marketplace. See you in two weeks.  By Scott Kucirek  | | |
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