When to Fire an Employee (And Why Waiting Costs You More)
You usually know months before you do it. The delay is not kindness. It is a bill your best people end up paying.
Fire someone when the pattern stops being mistakes and starts being excuses. Not because the mistakes are unforgivable, but because a person who will not take accountability cannot be coached, and the real cost was never their salary. It is the A players watching you tolerate it and quietly deciding that the standard here is lower than they thought.
How do you know it is time to let someone go
Consistent mistakes on the same task, after the instruction was clear. Three strikes is the default. By the third repetition of the same failure it is either deliberate or they are never going to get it, and both answers point the same direction. That count is not universal though, and the reason it is not is the whole point.
Trust is earned, so it buys different amounts of rope
An employee who has been with me nine years has been late maybe twice. If she is late, my first instinct is that something happened to her, because that is not her behavior. A brand new hire who is late in week one gets no such benefit. The first weeks are supposed to be their best behavior. If you cannot perform when every variable is stacked in your favor, why would I expect more once you get comfortable?
You are firing the excuse, not the error
The last person I let go was not fired for mistakes. It was different mistakes every time with the same excuse attached. If someone says I am sorry, I will fix it, that will not happen again, and then it does not happen again, we are fine. Everyone breaks something. The tell is whether accountability shows up with it. That is why accountability is leverage is not a slogan on this show. It is the actual hiring filter.
Contractors and employees do not get the same treatment
Independent contractors get the least room. You are not hiring a person to train, you are hiring a company at a premium price to take a problem off your desk. If a contractor promises to bring your cost per acquisition from 900 to 800 and six months later it is still 900, there is nothing to sit down and figure out together. It is not my job as the customer to teach the expert how to do the job I bought.
A salaried employee is different, because you are the one who is supposed to be teaching. Before you fire one, answer two questions honestly. Was there a standard operating procedure that defined what good looks like? Did you actually train them on it? If the answer is no, the failure is yours first. Your job as the employer is to pave the road. Their job is to run on it.
What one C player actually costs you
A bad employee burns out your best employees faster than anything else. I lost a phenomenal trainer years ago and never understood why until much later. I had two people creating a toxic environment, blaming everyone, running down other staff, showing up late. He came in one day and said he was done, took a job elsewhere, and eventually left the state. I did not connect it at the time. That one is my only regret from firing, and it is a regret about someone I did not fire.
The average always drops to the lowest tolerated standard
A professor once told a class he would average every test score and give everyone the same grade. First test came back a B. Second test, no A grades at all, because the people carrying the class asked the obvious question. Why am I doing this. The average fell to a C plus, then lower. Your team is that class. Your A players are watching what you tolerate, and they will price their own effort accordingly.
High skill and low will is not a keeper
I recently demoted someone with real skill and no will. Poor communication, clearly did not care, excellent at the actual craft. I kept him because the skill was hard to replace. Then I watched the behavior spread to people who had been sharp before he arrived, deadlines slipping, messages going unanswered. Skill is teachable if the will is there. Will is not something you install in someone.
A bad employee will burn out your best employees quicker than anything else.
Why I do not give notice, in either direction
If someone is already damaging the business, telling them a week early buys you a week of a person with nothing left to lose talking to your clients and your staff on the way out. I apply the same rule to resignations and end the two weeks immediately. Yes, that means some decent people get treated the same as the ones who caused the rule.
I keep it that way because a gray area does not survive being handed to someone else. The moment I let managers use judgment on where that line sits, they draw their own lines, and I will not agree with all of them. Black and white rules are how big companies stay consistent. If you want a business that outlasts you, the rules have to be replicable by people who are not you.
The retention side nobody runs
Firing fast is only half of it. If an A player gives you ten times the output of a C player, paying them 20 percent more is not generosity, it is arithmetic. A players are also not scrolling job boards at midnight. They are employed and happy somewhere, which means you find them through relationships and networking, not applications. That is why keeping them is worth more than replacing them.
Two things do that. Remove the C players fast, so your best people are not carrying dead weight. Then sit down with the ones you cannot afford to lose and ask what it would take to keep them here until they retire. Then actually pay it. Our hiring rule is simple. You only hire someone better than your current worst, so the floor keeps rising.
The full argument, including where my cohost and I completely disagree, is in Fire Fast on the show.
If your team is quietly setting its standard by the person you have not let go of yet, that is the work I do in coaching. Get on the waitlist.
Common questions
How many chances should you give an employee before firing them?
Three strikes on the same task is a reasonable default once you are certain the instructions were clear. New hires get less rope than that, because the first weeks are supposed to be their best behavior. Someone with a long track record of performing gets more, because they have already proven what their normal looks like. The count matters less than the pattern behind it.
Should you fire an employee for one mistake?
Usually no, unless the mistake is a conduct issue rather than a skill issue. Showing up drunk or an hour late in week one is not a strike, it is an answer. Independent contractors are the other exception, because you are paying a company a premium to be the expert and remove the problem, not to be trained by you.
Is it better to fire fast or give someone time to improve?
Fire fast when the person keeps producing excuses instead of accountability, because the cost is not their salary, it is the A players who watch it happen and lower their own standard. Give time when the person owns the mistake and shows will. Will is the variable worth waiting on. Skill can be taught.
Should you tell an employee in advance that they are going to be fired?
Anthony's position is no. If somebody is already hurting the business, giving them a week of notice buys you a week of a person with nothing to lose talking to your clients and your staff. He applies the same rule to resignations and ends the two weeks early. It is a hard rule on purpose, because gray areas do not survive being handed to a new manager.