I always say the two worst things you can give people are false praise and false hope. One of the reasons that I started my own law practice is because I was an employee and for the most part, I didn\u2019t like how I saw employers treat employees especially when it came to acting towards them by giving them sort of fake praise and then taking action against them.<\/p>\n
It happened really early when I worked at a Boston law firm as a law clerk when I was completing my studies as an LLM student. There was this paralegal there who clearly was way in over her head. I never worked with her, but she looked like a deer in the headlights, so it was Christmas season and she was getting her end of the year review. She told that her work was excellent and she got a raise. Within two weeks, she was fired for being incompetent.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the point of saying someone is doing a great job when they\u2019re not? I\u2019m sure people will say that the law firm was going to fire her anyway and so what\u2019s the point of telling her that she really needed to improve? I have an expression that I don\u2019t like to look bad and I believe that the law firm looked bad in her eyes, looked bad in the eyes of other employees (there was another paralegal who was really upset by it), and the leadership looked like a bunch of liars. I always say your word is your bond and if you go back on your word, people will never see you the same way again.<\/p>\n
Employees won\u2019t improve if you don\u2019t tell them they need to improve. Getting rid of employees and hiring new ones can be an absolute ordeal, so it\u2019s a good idea to salvage what you have. But you can\u2019t salvage something where the employee thinks they\u2019re doing a great job because you told them. Mixed signals aren\u2019t a good idea when managing employees. Morale is an important aspect too. So when you\u2019re firing an employee you\u2019ve told what a great job they\u2019re doing, it will impact the employees that are left.<\/p>\n
So if you have staff and they\u2019re not up to par, tell them. Give them an opportunity to get better because not having them see it coming is great on Survivor, it\u2019s not great in the workplace.<\/p>\n
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