Out of the Box

Hiring and Firing

By Menachem Lubinsky on June 27 2008

It is hard to think of the hiring and firing of employees as a marketing issue. Yet, it has increasingly become just that. Businesses routinely use the occasion of a new hire to stress change or progress. On the flip side is the potential for negative publicity over the laying off of an employee, particularly if it is from the ranks of upper management.

I recall consulting for a business that was in the process of a significant expansion of their business. In just one year, the business had taken on a new partner with a concomitant capital investment, moved into a new suite of offices and was in the process of hiring several new key management people. The CEO was anxious to tell the story of the company’s development, including the hire of a new CFO, but he was concerned that an announcement would backfire. He wasn’t sure whether the CFO would ultimately work out, whether his competitors would not go after him and “offer him more,” and whether some of his clients would worry that he, the CEO, was surrounding himself with subordinates and would no longer be accessible.

All of the CEO’s concerns were legitimate, but the key question that must be answered is what the motives for the announcement of a new hire are. If it is designed to add manpower to potentially win over new clients, then it might well be worth the risk. If on the other hand, the new hire is used as the showcase for a business that is growing, it might be best to profile another aspect of the business that might be better grounded.

Big business routinely publicizes a new hire, but may let a period of perhaps 3 months pass before going public with the announcement. They simply want to make sure that the new hire is working out. They want to avoid a PR fiasco that has happened to several companies who have had to retract an announcement because the hire either left or was fired after a very short period of time.

When it comes to firing, the risks that a business might find itself on the defensive are considerable. The recent firing of a manager of a New York sports team that was underachieving turned out to be a huge PR fiasco for the team. The general manager had flown 3,000 miles where the team was playing to fire the manager. The fans were incensed and the media was relentless in its attacks over the way that his firing was handled.

The firing of a manager of a sports team is markedly different from a food supplier that fired its sales director who the company determined was responsible for the loss of a significant amount of business. The sales director was said to be arrogant and not “a people’s person,” which caused many clients to leave. Once the president realized that his sales were down because of one person, he immediately fired him. But even before he had any idea of who would replace him, he sent out a letter to his entire customer list that the sales manager had indeed been fired. His letter also included details about who would be handling the account on an interim basis and invited customers that had left in a separate letter to deal directly with him.

The response to the president’s letter was swift. He received letters of encouragement and at least 10 customers took him up on his offer and called to do business with him. His sudden return to day-to-day sales only encouraged him to expedite the search for a replacement. Within 2 months, he had hired a new sales director who had worked for a competitor and came highly recommended. This development gave the president yet another opportunity to hype his business and hopefully encourage more of the drop-outs to return.

The company’s director of marketing saw the occasion of the new hire as a great opportunity. In addition to having the president send out another letter praising the new sales director, a reception was planned and a press release to the business press dispatched. The new sales director ultimately made personal visits to the customers that left and successfully managed to bring back many of them.

In covering this topic, I realized that there are always those that are reluctant to make a move at all because they fear for possible consequences. They are worried whether an employee that is under performing will bad mouth them. Some are concerned that any type of layoff may be perceived as a sign of weakness and so forth. While it is important to think of the potential down sides, a business should not keep an underachieving employee out of fear. A business is in business to make money and if an employee does not contribute to the bottom line, or even hurts it, the appropriate action should be taken, taking all of the human elements into consideration.

Out of the Box is a collection of strategic marketing articles that Lubicom has published on various topics, trends and ideas in the marketing world. The articles have been published in the Hamodia weekly newspaper circulated on three continents to a readership of well over 100,000.

The name, "Out of the Box" is a term used frequently in business nowadays to describe creative thinking that is not the norm. It is meant to help a business pull away from the pack or separate oneself from the competition. It is to some extent fraught with risk, simply because it is not the run of the mill thinking, but it is at the same time the key to reaching the next opportunity.