044: Hiring and Managing Employees

Listen to the podcast here: Hiring and Managing Employees

Summary: This podcast episode features a conversation between DPC pediatrician Dr. Marina and entrepreneur/coach Sarah from Soul Seat Academy, focused on how physicians and small business owners can effectively hire, lead, and, when necessary, fire team members in a way that centers culture and humanity over rigid metrics. The discussion emphasizes hiring for cultural alignment and a “servant’s heart” first, then training for skills using clear job descriptions, fun and specific role titles, and detailed standard operating procedures so employees feel safe, supported, and empowered in their roles. They highlight the importance of regular check‑in meetings that normalize two-way feedback, encourage employees to propose solutions, and actively address “workplace trauma detox” from past toxic environments so trust can grow over time. Finally, Sarah shares her structured “come to deity” conversation framework for handling serious performance issues, outlining clear paths of resolution, resignation, or termination while still treating people with dignity and viewing mistakes as “tuition” for learning rather than automatic grounds for dismissal.

Welcome to DPC Pediatrician. We’re Dr. Phil Boucher and Dr. Marina Capella, two DPC pediatricians who are on a mission to share our love of direct primary care with you. Welcome, everyone. I’m so excited today to have a conversation with Sarah, who is owner of Soul Seat Academy here in my current state of Utah.

And she has helped so many entrepreneurs to kind of get started. Purpose-driven individuals who want to start a business in a variety of different fields. She has also helped me to get DPC pediatrician off the ground. And I greatly appreciate all of her help in that.

She, in the process of helping entrepreneurs and in the process of having her own business, She has had the experience of hiring tons of people and also having what she calls come to deity conversations with people when things don’t seem to be working out very well. And so today I’m really delighted to have this conversation talking about how, once you get to the point as an entrepreneur that you need help, whether that’s a virtual assistant or an in-person assistant, medical assistant, whatever it is you need, how is it that you find the right people? How is it that you lead and train the people in order to do what you need them to do?

And then how do you keep them on track when things start to maybe go a little awry? So welcome, Sarah. Thank you for being here.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Okay, yeah, I’m super excited to dive into this. I’m passionate about building not just awesome businesses, but cultures, company cultures, because my motto is life is hard enough, work shouldn’t be harder. And that if I can actually create a workspace where my employees feel like…

This is less stressful to be at work than it is to be at home or the rest of their life that we have totally won. So I always tell my team that I have their back over any customer, that we have our backs. The customer is never right when it’s an argument between staff and customers, if we have a culture of trust. and good communication.

So that way, if something happens with a customer that there’s a complaint or something, I can go to that team member and say, okay, here we have a problem and dive right into problem solving instead of stroking their ego, making sure they’re okay, or making them feel unsafe because they think they’re gonna be in trouble because this customer’s mad. You build this culture of safety within your organization and it serves you for miles. You don’t have to deal with drama. So I think a lot of people get afraid of creating this culture and afraid of taking ownership of this culture.

And I was there. I used to be afraid of my employees and super… I’m not a passive or aggressive personality anyway, but just kind of passive and not… really calling it what it was. But over time and dealing with some really bad situations and watching other people struggle,

I kind of fell into my groove of how I want my organizations to run. I hire for culture first, training later. I know sometimes you need licensure, but still there are people you need to hire for culture first and then train later. You can train on a system. You can train on SOPs, standard operating procedures,

but you can’t train somebody to love people. So if your culture is really one of openness and caring, you need to hire that person. You can’t expect them to change.

One of the frustrations that I see with physicians in the community of direct primary care is is that they will be desperate to hire someone because they’re at the point where they need help. And so they’ll put out a listing and they’ll hire someone that seems on paper like a good fit. And then interpersonal issues will arise.

And I think we as physicians, we’re not always well trained in how to deal with like employee problems. I mean, we’re trained on how to like, deal with patients and sometimes quote unquote difficult patients. But when it comes to our employees, it’s kind of a whole different ball game that we have to manage.

And so how does a person hire someone? How do you, let’s start with how do you write a job description that attracts the right person, right? Because that’s a very first step. Yes, yes.

Okay, so this might go against the advice that other people have said about job postings, but I like to make them very long, and I like to really describe what the job is like. So we’re used to ChatGPT and auto-generated and crappy, crappy job postings, and yours will stand out because it’s written from the heart. So…

And some people may they just want to go be a nameless number working in a hospital somewhere. Fine. You don’t want that person in your DPC. You want someone who is heart centered and ready to serve. Right. So here are the main components of the perfect help wanted ad.

And I’m just going to list them out and then I’ll give like an example. So the first one is the title. Give it a fun title. So in one of my positions, I called it a superhero handyman. Okay, I needed a handyman. But in my job description, I talked about why they’re a superhero.

It’s not only do I need you to know how to use a screwdriver, but I need you to feel fulfilled when you help someone out. That’s the superhero part. So give it a title, like you could call it Worried Parent Happiness Specialist. I don’t know, like give it some sort of like silly title.

And this isn’t that your job is silly, but this is a attention getter because if they go receptionist, receptionist, receptionist, customer journey, happiness specialist, fairy godmother, unicorn sparkle, princess goddess fairy. And they’re like, wait a minute, that job sounds different, right?

So that’s the first thing is a really catchy title that is open, honest, fun, and click baby. Okay. The second is intro to your amazingness. So this is the emotional pull. So this is a job you are hiring them. You’re paying. This is a transactional relationship.

But again, the first start of that cultural alignment is to make sure that the emotionally they are in line with what you want to do in your company. So the first paragraph could be like, hey, we’re a DPC in the Dallas area, and we serve mamas who are naturally minded, who love engaging their children in super exciting childhood play, and who wants a doctor who supports their parenting journey.

Mm-hmm.

Or you could say we are a very specialized clinic dealing with children with high special needs, very medically fragile children. And we do so with a very rigid practice with very, very strong support for our clients, customers, patients. Right. You just want a paragraph that just describes the general vibe of your office space.

Then you want to introduce your ideal client. So you’d say the ideal receptionist slash fairy godmother would be someone who loves greeting new people. They’re not afraid of technology. They don’t have to be the best at technology because we can train on the computers later, but they love to give out lollipops. They love to problem solve.

They love to see children feel better. That’s the ideal candidate. They can work. You can do a little bit things like they have their own. Well, for me, I employ in a lot of different positions, but sometimes they’ll say they need to have their own car or they need to, depending on the type of job,

if it’s expected. Then you go into the job includes. Job includes greeting customers or greeting patients, opening the office every day, making sure that the snack room is fully stocked in parentheses. We love our healthy snacks in our snack room. And then just basically the job description, or if it’s an assistant physician or whatever it is,

then you take this many appointments per day. And this is what basically the job includes, obviously. Then the time expectations and scheduling. So I am a little different in the way I hire my team. And I imagine DPCs are a little different too, since you’re your own person, you’re not beholden to the whole thing.

nine to five normal office cycle. I love to find people that normally wouldn’t be in the workforce, these like diamonds in the rough. So if you have something in there, like you want to hire, you could hire a mom, but she’s only available from nine to one every day because of the school schedule,

or you want to hire a retired physician who just wants to still keep loving children. You could say something about the time expectations, like Hey, you can set a schedule. Once your schedule’s set, then we’ll go off of that. But just basically give them the time expectations. Give them a sample day. That’s the next part.

Sample day, 8 a.m. You arrive, unlock the office, reload the lollipop jar, turn on the cartoons in the waiting room, clean up the play area, the waiting area, open the thing. Step two is return all the voicemails from the night before. Step three is process the payments from the, whatever it is, like give them a sample day,

checklist day. This is really key because so much is ambiguous out there. Like, okay, I’m getting hired and what is it really going to look like? So that’ll set you apart. The next thing is the must haves. Now we’re getting into the nitty gritty, the must haves. You must have like the ability to work in the U.S.

You must have this licensure. You must have a working reliable cell phone or car, whatever your absolute must haves. Then the next one is why you would love working here. So you would love working here because we have each other’s back. Our clients love us. This is the niche we serve.

And this is why this would work well for you. When I talk to my hires, and this will go into the next section about hiring, is I always tell my employees, if this job works for you and you love this job, and this isn’t saying that every day is going to be magical and sparkly and lovely.

Some days are super hard. But if generally you’re emotionally satisfied with this job, then you Your balance, the balance across your whole life is going to feel better, which we both win. You’re going to feel fulfilled. You’re going to feel solid and grounded and supported. And I’m going to get your best work.

You’re going to show up the best way for me and just call it that it is. I want your best work. So I want to set up this culture so that you can give me the – I always call it the cream. If your life is balanced, I get the cream off the top,

not because I’m taking that from you, but because your cup runneth over. And that is really the key is if your employees, your team is feeling supported, they’ll give you more, but they’ll give from a place of plentiful abundance than from like – Just, yeah. Yeah.

I call it prostitution, but you don’t want to take from the core soul of who they are.

No. And I love that you really emphasize that because I think that really is so important. You want to make sure that When you choose someone, it’s something that they actually care about that they want to do so that it’s aligned with their greater life goals, right?

If someone is taking a job just because they need a paycheck, that’s not a good alignment, right? They’re not going to have that cream on top, like you call it, right? They’re just going to be showing up, doing what they absolutely have to do in order to get that paycheck and then going home.

And it’s just not someone who’s going to be really fulfilled, right? I love some of my employees, one of my medical assistants. Every staff meeting every week, we have a little ritual where we go through and share something that we’re grateful for that week and something that has been a challenge that week.

And one of the things that she has said so many times is, I’m so grateful for the flexibility of this job. And I’m kind of surprised when I hear that because she works so hard the days that she is here. And she’s here from 9 a.m. to sometimes 7 p.m.,

But the flexibility she refers to is that she’s able to drop her kids off in the morning and then show up. And then she has days off. So like in the week, she has Tuesdays off and Fridays off. And so she can take her kids to doctor’s appointments and to school things.

And so for her, that’s just so valued. And she gives above and beyond that. Partly because she’s so grateful for that, what she calls flexibility. And also we’re trying to be flexible. If someone is sick or someone needs to go to their own doctor’s appointment on a day, like we will work it out as a team.

Here’s the other thing is it comes back to you. If you’ve been flexible with them and generous with them and say there’s an emergency at 10 PM and you just, you got two emergencies back to back or whatever, and you need, you call an employee and you’re like, you know what, can you just do this?

They’re like, sure, let me leave my family party and do this for you. Because they know you normally operate with your hair on fire and that this is a scheduling conflict you couldn’t anticipate. So it really goes both ways. Some people will take advantage of that. Those people need to leave.

And we’re going to talk about how to fire. Okay. Excellent. Yeah. But really, when you find it, it sounds like you found that person and that’s amazing. Yeah. We want a whole office full of them.

Gotcha. Okay. So you wrote your job description and now hiring. What are the next?

The last thing about your job description is how to apply. Give them the step-by-step. Please call us. Please stop by. Please wear your favorite team… team hoodie. When you come to the interview, we want you to really get to know you, whatever you want to give them that picture of how it feels to work with you. Okay.

So now the interview, the hiring and screening again, higher culture, first skills later. The first question I always ask in my interview is where are, have you been and where are you going? And this is not a question that people usually get asked. So they kind of like founder.

And so I usually will give them like, like breadcrumb. I’ll be like, well, tell me what you’ve done that you’ve loved about your life and where ultimately give me your crazy pie in the sky dream, what you would do if, and that’s when they will open up and they’ll say, well,

I was a vet tech for awhile and then I had kids and then I went through a divorce. And again, you’re not asking these questions, but a lot of times they’ll self-disclose a lot of this information, personal information. That’s okay. As long as you’re not asking those things, they can self-disclose. And and and then you’re like, well,

tell me about like, would you still want to work with animals someday? What do you want to do? And they’ll tell you, oh, yeah, someday I want to have a rescue. I bet my kids are little right now. I just need a stable job, whatever it is. Right. If they answer and you’re like, great,

because then your next follow up question is awesome or your next statement is awesome. Well, this whole interview and if you decide to work here. Because again, it’s their decision too. If you decide to work here, then I want to figure out how this job is going to further those dreams for you.

Because again, I hire usually bottom of the ladder, the entry-level jobs for my companies. And so… I know they’re not going to be there forever. They’re not going to be at a $16 an hour job forever. And at least I hope not. And I want to know how they’re using this job to further their growth,

because if they can see how this is leveraging for their growth, again, they’ll give me a higher quality and I will in turn be able to support them in their journey better. So yeah. If they answer, well, I don’t know, I’m just looking for a summer job. I just,

my husband was laid off and I don’t know your job, because you are going to attract a lot of people with this awesome job write-up. You are going to attract. If they can’t answer the where have you been, where are you going question, that is my first red flag, honestly, because I don’t want somebody who’s lost.

And I’ll keep digging. I’ll give them three chances, just asking it a different way. Well, what’s really on your heart? I know this is a weird question to ask in an interview, but it matters here, and you matter here. And then they’ll open up, usually. Sometimes they don’t.

And then I try and get out of the interview as quickly as possible, because if I can’t see how they’re using this to further their own life, then they can’t see how they can help me further the lives of my clients. Like they can’t. Yeah. So, yeah.

So I have a, I have a chart on Google sheets and I just have all these questions. I have the self-disclosure questions that I’m not allowed to ask legally, but if they do, I still take a note of them. And it’s basically the questions of like, how have you lifted someone up before?

Give me a story of how your presence made one of your coworkers lives easier or better. And just listen to their response. Was it all about them or did it come from a servant’s heart perspective? Right. So. Hiring and screening. Expectations for employment. So we can’t, at least in our state,

we shouldn’t do employee contracts that can get you in trouble. So you do employee agreements. So basically this is the description of the job. Do you agree that these are in line with you? And then when you fire, it’s not a contract, it’s an agreement. So it’s just thought languaging. SOPs, how to write SOPs.

So a lot of times we’re drowning and we want to hire somebody to stop the drowning. And so we give them a type, like, it’s like, what did Jim Gaffigan said? It’s like, what’s parenting? It’s like, you’re drowning and somebody hands you a baby.

That’s kind of what it’s like when you’re a founder of a company is that you’re drowning and then you expect that employee to take that burden off you. Here’s where it gets dangerous. Yeah. And it gets harder before it gets easier, but I promise it gets easier. If you just employ somebody,

come in and expect them to fix your systems and not hold them accountable to write standard operating procedures or SOPs, you’ve basically… Now you’re an employee of your employee. They hold the keys to the boat. They are in control. If they are sick or they…

start they go rogue and they start embezzling or you are you are in trouble so you need to be the one writing sops or instructing your employees on how to do it how you want them written and holding them accountable to it so it might feel like you

just hired an employee and gave yourself another job and you did as a manager until you set up this culture and then they train each other and then it gets passed on and then eventually they’re hiring their own staff without your oversight and you’re still getting all the SOPs. And that way, if everything went down one day,

all of your employees were sick and you had to run the office by yourself, all you would have to do is pull up those SOPs and you would know exactly what your employees do to keep everything running. So…

Such a good and important point. I remember when I first hired my very first office assistant, I was getting busy enough that I knew that I did not want to keep doing all those faxes and scans and scheduling. And so I hired my first employee part-time, just initially two to three days a week.

And now she’s like at four to five days a week. But it was my first time hiring someone. And so it’s a learning curve, right? And I knew she was a good fit culturally. Like she just brought so much to the table. She had experience in the healthcare industry.

industry and she really cared about giving patients a positive patient experience. So I knew culture fit was great, but she came from the world where she was a scheduler before, at least for the last few years, she’d been a scheduler and she had scripts that she would go off. And she just begged me.

She was like, please like Dr. Cole, I need you to like write a like scripts for me. And I need you to tell me exactly what I need to do. So she kind of pushed me into writing those standard operating procedures. And so I kind of a little bit grudgingly, if I’m honest, because it was like,

oh,

like you said, like, I don’t want more work, but it was important. And so I wrote like a little manual for her. It wasn’t like super detailed. It was just like mostly a compilation of checklists that I created of like, this is how you schedule these types of visits. And this is how you onboard a new member.

And this is how you do this. And I don’t think she even went perfectly off of them, but it was enough to get her comfortable. She was like, okay, you’ve given me a template that I can go off of and I know what you want from me.

And then ever since then, she has helped to onboard two new people since then. and train them. And she has gone back and improved those manuals. And it’s amazing that I needed to give her the starting point.

Exactly. You illustrated that perfectly. And how free are you and how satisfied does she feel about her job? Like everybody wins. Everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. So the next thing is the employee meetings. These were really hard. When I learned this, I learned this and I really kind of made me nervous because I, again, very passive,

I’m a people pleaser, but I started implementing these even though it was really uncomfortable and I’ve seen just so much come from it. So I tell you, if this feels abrasive or weird, then it’s okay. You are like me. If this feels natural, then awesome. You are ahead of the game.

But you need to have a monthly meeting. At the beginning, it needs to be weekly, but then a monthly meeting. And this is the check-in. And so here’s your script. The first one is what’s working for you What’s not working for you? How can we improve? What’s working for me? What’s not working for me?

How can we improve? And then a check-in on how is your journey going? So this looks like, hey, Marina, how is it? And again, if you set up this expectation every month that you’re going to have this talk, most months, nothing exciting is going to be said. But if they know the pattern is there,

it creates a very safe space for problems to come up and for you to address them instead of them being swept under the rug and then festering and then blowing up in your face. So it looks like, hey, hey, Marina, if you’re my employee. Hey, I thank you so much for meeting with me today.

What’s working for you? right now. And you’re like, well, I really liked the new system we got, the new copier. Thank you for getting the new copier. That was the printer. The last printer was crappy. Thank you so much. That’s really awesome. Great. What’s not working for you?

Well, we did get the new copier, but it keeps jamming. The paper keeps… So these can be minute things or they can be interpersonal stuff, but now you’re hearing about it. You’re like, well, copy machine’s not working. And also that client that we’ve been trying to fire because she oversteps our boundaries, she keeps calling. She figured out

where I live and now she’s stalking me. This isn’t working for me. Okay. And then you can say, okay, great. How would you like to see this solved? Again, like our founder brain wants to solve all the problems. Our entrepreneur brain feels like we’re in charge of all of it, but they just told you a problem.

And then you say, how would you like to see it solved? And she’s like, well, I mean, my husband’s really good with printers. Is he okay if he comes in and takes a look at it? And you’re thinking, yeah. That’s great. Yes, sure. Have him bring in.

You’d rather give them an Amazon gift card than to pay a copy person to come in or whatever it is. Right. So you’ll be surprised at what you hear at their problem solving, what they want, how they want to see it. And then you either tell them, yeah, we can solve it that way. Or how about this?

And you, maybe you do some redirection. Okay. So then after that, that’s the employee centric stuff. Right. Then it’s now me. Marina, what’s working for me is I love your attitude. I love every morning you come in with a smile, even though I know you stubbed your toe real hard, you broke your ankle,

and yet you were still so kind to these clients. And I just love that you bring such a light to the office. Thank you so much. What’s not working for me is the arrival time is getting a little mushy. So the other day you got here at 8.15 and our first patient arrived at 8.19.

So they didn’t know you were late, but the lights weren’t on and it was just a little awkward. So can you tell me what’s going on? That’s not working for me. Can you tell me what’s going on in your life? Are you struggling with the start time? What’s your deal? And then she might, then she’ll tell you.

She’ll tell you what’s going on. So that creates this openness for communication, right? And then the last thing you say is, and how’s everything going? Last month, your daughter, and take notes. Last month, your daughter had a dance recital coming up. How did that go? Oh, yeah, they actually went on to win the state championships.

And you have this little bit of celebration, right? It’s just like this little bit of interpersonal stuff. And I do take notes. And I say, like, it’s the fact that I care about them is what matters to the employee, not the fact that I remember their daughter’s name or not.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that’s a big thing, these employee meetings. And then asking them.

In the world of business, the importance of that interpersonal connection is sometimes under-emphasized. It’s because it’s so… protocolized in a lot of big companies it’s like you have your annual review and only once a year your employer talks to you and gives you feedback and it’s so tied

to like these metrics and like whether you get a raise or not and and we’ve just like been trained in society to like fear these feedback sessions and so This is really rewriting the script for people. It’s like, hey, this is the healthy way to do it instead of the dysfunctional, terrifying way to do it.

But I think those frequent check-ins are really, really important. And I really love what you said about asking them how they would solve a problem. Because sometimes my employees come to me with issues. I now have five employees and and I’m like, oh, dear Lord, like I’m trying to do this other thing.

I have no idea how to solve your problem. And so it’s great to just say, like, do you have any ideas? Let me think about it. I don’t have anything right now, but. What do you think would help? And it also helps them to feel that their voice is valued because my medical

assistant came from a very toxic workplace where she worked for over 10 years and she almost had like PTSD and these like dysfunctional ways of, of, of viewing bosses because of that. And so it’s almost had to be like a deep programming and her voice is valued. Your voice is valued. You are amazing.

You are so capable and just really giving her that positive reinforcement and that empowerment And she has just really soared because of that.

She flourished, yeah. So I’m a recovering people pleaser, passive people pleaser. I guess that’s always going to be my personality, right? I’m very empathetic. And so I’ve given myself scripts and lines to say that are very direct, but cut out all the clutter. Because I could talk to you about 20 minutes about your feelings and my feelings

and bonding, bonding, bonding, bonding. And I do the first week they’re employed. I basically… Bonds, bond, bond, bond. And then after that, I need to trust that the bond’s there. And then I need to say direct things. So I say things like, hey, I’m your boss. I’m not your friend. But I see this.

There’s a ripple in the force that something’s going on. Right. Or I’ll say things like I find myself saying this line a lot because a lot of stuff that happens is part of the deprogramming and detoxing from that. Yeah, from what’s happening. So I say I do tell people, hey, so there’s a detox period.

There’s an adjustment period after working in the real world and working with me. There’s there’s an adjustment period. And I think we’re still I think this problem specifically is a detox problem. And so this is how this is. And I’ll just say point blank. You matter.

I don’t know what the other job did to you, but you matter. And this is why. And I want to remind you why you were hired. And. So go ahead and detox, but basically saying, this is your problem. This is your trauma you’re dealing with. And I recognize it, but it’s different here. Let down your guard.

And sometimes if people don’t let down their guard a lot, like maybe it’s three or four or five months. I just had to come to the idea. We’re talking about that next with an employee. And I had to tell them again, Hey. I think you’re still detoxing. It’s different here.

Remember, tell me what you love about this job site. And he told me all the things I was like, see, it’s different. Other jobs aren’t like that. Other places aren’t like that. We got this. And he he let down his guard and we went back to work.

But he just he just kept feeling like he was going to get in trouble for things. I’m like, you’re not in trouble. You haven’t been in trouble. Let’s just talk about it. So it’s a detox thing. Call it what it is.

That past work trauma is very real. And I think as physicians, we also bring our own work trauma into it. And so in the past, if our interactions with nurses or with medical assistants or with office staff was a certain way because of the rules of the larger organization,

we can also bring in our own dysfunctional ways of communicating and of being. into that workplace so we need to be aware that just as much as like our employees can bring that in what are we bringing in from our past lives our past work lives

so yeah i love that you mentioned that yeah and this is again feeding into that beautiful culture so the last thing i want to tell you about is my secret sauce for come to deity conversations come to god come to jesus whatever i call them come to deity because they make people laugh okay

So I actually tell them, so we have the hiring, interview, the screening, but then on the onboarding, I actually tell them my pattern. I say, okay, so everything is great. We’re going to have a honeymoon period. It’s going to be amazing here. We’re so excited to have you join our team,

but I just want to tell you what a come to DA talk is because if, or when we have a problem, This is the script I’m going to follow. It’s going to be a come to deity. I’m going to tell you it’s a come to deity.

You won’t know what’s coming because I don’t want to give you any, like, I don’t want to freak you out. So I’m going to put you aside one day and I’m going to say, Hey, this is a come to deity talk. Your blood pressure is going to rise. Don’t worry.

I’ve already been in fits all night about the talk and it’s okay. We’re going to get through this, but this is the script I’m going to follow when it happens or if it happens, it’s going to be okay. OK, so then they’re cool. So then when it happens or when it happens, you can say, OK,

so this is the talk we talked about in onboarding. Number one, this is not a firing conversation. I mean, there are sometimes I fired point blank just done that for really egregious stuff. But again, people first. And so if this is a very serious conversation, I say, first of all, this is not a firing conversation. Okay.

Not a firing, let the blood pressure. There’s usually when it gets this serious, there are often tears, but this is why I like to use this direct communication because otherwise I’d be a blubbering mess too. And I’m the boss. So I say, okay, this conversation can go one of three ways.

And I remind, I told you this in the onboarding. And so I just want to remind you, the first option is i want you to stay you’re valuable here you really matter to us you’ve you’ve contributed in ways that i can’t even thank you for and this you are more important

than the mistake or what’s happening right now and so the number one is we figure out a resolution and we move forward move forward and everything’s great number two is after this conversation you decide that this job is really not a good fit and

you resign and if you resign i am still going to write you a letter of recommendation and i’m going to say these three specific amazing things about you and i’ve already prepared this in my head Because just because they’re not a good fit for you doesn’t mean they’re not a good human. So I say,

I would be happy to write you a letter of recommendation addressing that, oh my gosh, you’re so friendly, but you can’t show up on time. I knew this, but you can’t. I won’t say anything negative. It’s about those three positives. And you know that I really do believe in those positives.

So this letter of recommendation would be honest. I think that’s really respectful. Option three is we do find a resolution, but it doesn’t go into practice. And then either we circle back to another come to deity talk or you would be fired at that point. And then it would be a firing conversation. But again, I don’t surprise.

I don’t like… shock my people, but that’s the third option. And you’re in control. You’re in control of all three of those. Okay, so I set that standard. Then I state the problem. We talk about it. We come to a solution and I’ve had it go all three ways, really.

And I never really know which way it is. My record is three come to deities, three hard, solid come to deities. And this employee has now been with me for three years. But that first year was a little rough, but each time, we came to this conversation, she shifted, she matured, she grew, and she is rock solid,

and I hope she’ll be with me for another 15. So people are worth it. People are worth it. And that is my script for the come to deity. The end, I just assure them, great, we picked this. Okay, so this is how we’re going to hold each other accountable.

One of my favorite examples is a gal, and I’m like, hey, So we’ve noticed that you’re just stopped. You stop working during the day. You just freeze. You just stop working. What’s the deal? Like this isn’t acceptable. It’s making our customers uncomfortable and the team uncomfortable. And so this isn’t working.

And she said, oh, I didn’t realize I was doing that. I have complex PTSD. And when I have a trigger, it’s almost like I go into a seizure and I go like I freeze and I don’t know how long I’ve disassociated. And I was like, geez, bro, that, okay, that explains it. That’s a lot.

I said, what triggers these? She goes, when I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing. And I was like, okay, so if you had a job where everything was SOP’d out and it was just a checklist and everything was the same every single day, that would not trigger you. And she said, that would help.

And I was like, great, let’s do it. So we wrote it and she improved miles and miles. And it was just that come to date. She wasn’t getting fired, you know, but I just needed to know what was going on because it wasn’t working. And I have other employees where after the second come to D&I,

I pull them in and say, hey, we’ve talked about this, but the behavior has not changed significantly enough. And so I am recording this conversation, but this is your official termination. Here’s your final check. And I will, I will escort you outside of the building. I really thank you for your time and everything you’ve contributed.

And I know this is a lot, but you’re, you’re safe and I, or whatever I say, you’re okay. And, and this isn’t anything personal. Like you just say the nice, the things that you really do mean you don’t want to hurt people. Even if they know where they’re coming, even though, even though,

even if they know it’s coming, it’s still kind of a shock, right?

Yeah, of course. It’s an emotional thing for most people, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There’s my come to deity and it’s changed my life. Yeah.

What I love about your approach is that you treat people like people, right? And in the business classes that I’ve been taking, I think some of the best professors have been the ones who are like, we need to change business. We need to transform the business world in a way that treats people like people, right?

They’re not just automatons. Our employees are not just productivity machines. Like… their people at their corner, right? And then people don’t just come to a job completely matured and completely perfect. Like we are all a work in progress, right? And so giving people within any employed position, the opportunity to learn, to grow,

to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes and continue their evolution. I think that’s amazing. There was this book that I read I think it’s called permission to screw up by this like college student who ended up starting a cleaning service. And one of the things she,

the stories she tells is about how one of her employees screwed up the payroll and accidentally issued out checks that were 10 times what they were supposed to be. And so overnight they just were out to the tons and tons of money and they had to fix the problem.

And she could have easily just fired that person on the spot for such a big mistake. But she talked about how she had a conversation with that employee and said, this was a big mistake. Let’s talk about how we learned what we learned. Let’s talk about how we can prevent this from ever happening again.

And she said, if you’re okay staying, I want you to stay because you learned that we paid money. tens of thousands of dollars for you to learn a very valuable lesson.

Did you know how it happened? Are you going to do it again? Are you sorry?

Exactly. Move on. I don’t want to have to have some hire someone else.

And then they don’t want to pay that tuition again. I call it tuition too. I don’t want to have to pay that tuition again. So yeah, I love that. Exactly. That’s exactly what we’re saying. People matter more than anything. It really, that’s all that matters.

Absolutely. Yeah. And my employees make mistakes and they come to me and I’m like, Hey, You’re human. I’m human. Like this is okay. How are we going to learn from this? And then how are we going to put systems in place so that this just doesn’t happen again?

And I can just sort of see them feel so like.

Relax. And the last thing you want is for them to hide their mistakes from you. Cause then that was just faster. Things get bad. Yeah. I agree.

I have one employee who like. He kind of tries to like hide, not hide his mistakes, but it’s really hard for him to admit when he’s made the mistake. And so we’re working on that. But I think as long as he continues to show like willingness to grow and progress, I’m okay keeping him on. So yeah. Yeah.

thank you so much sarah really invaluable insights and and pieces of advice on how to find the right people employ the right people work with the right people train them and then once in a while fire them if needed so i appreciate all of your experience and sharing that with us you’re welcome all right thanks everyone for listening.