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I get asked regularly, “When should I fire a Millennial?” and “When are the performance issues really MY fault?” My book, Sticking Points, provides over 100 ideas for making your workplace more attractive to Millennials. I usually caution managers to give employees the benefit of the doubt and to try some of the 100 ideas before they start canning people. But you know as well as I do – you can only do so much with some people.
It’s simple: if an employee’s underperformance is bothering you, it’s bothering other Millennials on the team. Just like the employees of any generation, Millennials are looking to you to provide leadership and to hold people to consistent and fair standards. I saw an example of this in my own home last summer.
My 20-year-old son has worked in retail for three years and thinks some of his peers “don’t get it” yet when it comes to work ethic. Last summer he came home and told me how he had finally lost his patience with a 17-year-old colleague who was always on his phone, rather than refolding clothes, when he wasn’t with a customer. As a result, everyone else had to work longer to catch up. (I would’ve been happy to make another half hour’s money, but that extra half hour was cutting into my son’s social life.)
So two days before he headed off to college, my boy lost his patience and told his coworker he was tired of doing both of their jobs. He asked him if he could please put his phone in his pocket and work, so that everyone else would stop complaining about him behind his back. His slacking coworker was offended and expressed his displeasure by suggesting something to the effect that I wasn’t his real dad. About 10 o’clock that night, my son came home pretty wired up about the conflict.
My son should have been more professional and confronted his texting coworker long before he hit the breaking point. And I know what you’re thinking – yes, the manager should’ve been having this conversation with the slacking employee in the first place. But managers, let me repeat the moral of the story: your hard workers, no matter what generation, know who isn’t carrying their weight, and they want you to do something about it.
How do you know when it’s time to fire?
- You’ve checked your generational preferences at the door.
- You’ve been clear, repeatedly, on the standards.
- You’ve explained why the standards are in place. (Millennials are called Gen “Why?” for a reason.)
- You’ve coached the associate on the standards, giving him/her time to improve.
- Other employees deliver on the standards consistently.
- The offending employee doesn’t care that he/she isn’t delivering.
Millennials have worked less while going to school than previous generations, and many parents have overprotected their kids, so they may not have much work experience. In the new life stage of Emerging Adulthood, people take longer to find their career directions and therefore may see a workplace more as a job than as a career.
Bottom line: some Millennials will need to get fired a couple times before they get it. The kindest thing you can do for them is to be very clear with the performance standards and the reasons for them. Then hold the young employee accountable to those standards, or let him/her go.
You are doing inexperienced employees, and the rest of us, no favors by letting them slide.
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