Page 115 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

100 Just Promoted!

and professional and support staff. As mentioned earlier, take particular care
in choosing your administrative assistant. He or she should become one of
your most important staff members and one of the individuals with whom
you will work closest on your leadership team. Where gaps exist, assess a per-
son’s present and future ability to perform the job. Knowing the gaps allows
for custom designing of learning and development plans for employees. Being
aware of these gaps will also help you determine where to go within or out-
side your organization for help or where to make internal adjustments in work
and managerial assignments.

Deciding Whether to Keep Everyone
On occasion, an incumbent does not rate well over an extended period of time
and after thorough appraisals. If you are contemplating termination of an
employee, seek the advice of legal counsel with expertise in employment and
labor law and your organization’s specialist in human resources and employee
relations.
Today’s laws can be complicated and laden with difficulties. However, you
must not let your understandable reluctance to get involved in the legal and
personal complications of a termination deter you from selecting, building,
and developing the best management team possible. Do not keep marginal
people because of sympathy or false hope. If you have a substantial doubt
about an individual, mutually work on a performance improvement plan over
a reasonable period of time. This plan could include a different work assign-
ment that more closely matches a person’s abilities. But it may be necessary
to terminate individuals. Marginal performers will ultimately affect your own
performance and your organization’s success.
Sound ethics and good business practice should guide your treatment of
employees who are barely holding on or those who should be terminated.
Make every effort to see that the company helps them reestablish their careers
elsewhere (including providing severance packages and outplacement coun-
seling). These employees should be assisted in preserving their personal
integrity, psychological well-being, and, within reason, their financial stabil-
ity. Professional outplacement services and your human resources department
can provide excellent guidance in structuring support services and equitable
severance packages for terminated employees.