It will absolutely come up. And people will remember it. It will absolutely be perceived as "cheap ass founder didn't want to pay worker for their time."

And effectively they didn't, if that vest is a good portion of the pay

However paying them will be remembered too. It will be perceived as "why are you giving away profitability of the company (and thus my equity and/or end of year bonus) to someone you should have fired a long time ago?".

The answer to that is “they worked 50 out of the 52 weeks; it was a leadership mistake earlier to not hold everyone to the high bar we expect, but we still act ethically towards all of our stakeholders, even when doing so is inconvenient.”

Yeah, sounds best. I'd still run it past the lawyers to make sure it's fine to "badmouth" a former employee in your jurisdiction.

It means taking ownership of the mistake, even if it does mean that you're effectively apologizing for devaluing the company to the other stockholders and other stakeholders.

Still, there's a little bit of "oh, so when I leave I can expect management to talk shit about my performance", which wouldn't do wonders for my impostor syndrome.

The problem is the onlookers don’t know why you’ve fired someone; they’re free to assume whatever they want.

And anyone remotely suspicious of your good will should be mighty suspicious that anything you’ve said was just justification to deny compensation — when is my vesting date again..?

> The problem is the onlookers don’t know why you’ve fired someone; they’re free to assume whatever they want.

You can and should address this. It would be insane to fire someone and not explain why.

Really? I think it’s generally considered bad business etiquette to publicly speak about why someone was fired, beyond something very generic such as “performance-related reasons”. Once someone has left the company there is very little point in making critical comments about them, as it’s too late to change anything.

Yes but it gives the remaining people a mark on what is acceptable or not acceptable. If you fired someone for bad performance they now know that bad performance will not be tolerated (or at least not forever). If you fired them for being unprofessional or for bad behaviour the rest now know that there is a consequence for such behaviour.

They know that what you perceive as bad performance will not be tolerated. And that’s if they assume that you’re telling the truth.

If your team at a startup of <=10 people assumes you are lying or that you have no idea how someone performs (to the point of firing a good performer for bad performance) you've got much bigger problems than that employee.

I don't think so. There can be good reasons not to tell the whole truth about why someone was fired, and it's normal for managers to have only a rough idea of how well people are performing, even in a small company.

If you're the boss then "what you perceive" as poor performance and "what is" poor performance are effectively the same thing. Companies aren't democracies were the team decides on what the bar is. The role of the lead / manager / owner is to set that bar and help the team to reach it.

It's certainly possible for the boss to base their evaluation on mistaken beliefs. For example, they might think Employee A is largely responsible for a delay in releasing Feature X when in fact it was Employee B.

I have to say though, this whole discussion is a fascinating insight into what appears to be the thought process of many managers and/or founders.

Who was responsible for a delay isn't what's being asked at all. What's being asked is: "I have an employee who isn't producing the outputs requested of them in a timely manner, what should I do?" This has nothing to do with Feature X or Feature Y. They also highlighted behavioural issues. These are all within the scope of a leader to determine.

I understand that. The point is just that a boss isn't infallible in evaluating the performance of their employees. I wasn't expecting that to be a controversial statement, but you seemed to be challenging it. As to whether or not the person who asked the question is right, it's obviously impossible for us to know.

My response was in the context of "what your team members perceive" to be performance. My response was quite simply: "you get what you measure." Your team will respond to your perception by focusing on improving in areas that you perceive to be markers of good performance.

That certainly can happen. However, it depends on at least the following assumptions:

* Your perception of your employees' performance is consistent and predictable over time. Not all bosses evaluate based on consistent and predictable criteria.

* Your perception isn't significantly distorted by false beliefs about who has done (or not done) what.

(Needless to say, that's generic 'you', not you specifically.)

If you want, you can say "I hereby define 'good performance' to be any performance that I, the boss, think is good" – but that's just a semantic game.

None of that is relevant to my point.

"I hereby define 'good performance' to be any performance that I, the boss, think is good"

At its most basic level, that's _exactly_ what we as leadership do. All you're now saying is "some bosses suck." Well... yes, news at 11.

I wouldn't explain why in detail/ be critical, but I would have a meeting to address what happened. Having been in this position when someone gets fired people get nervous - they ask "are we doing OK on money?" and things like that, which you can address.

>> The problem is the onlookers don’t know why you’ve fired someone; they’re free to assume whatever they want.

> You can and should address this.

Except that you can't address this. You can say whatever you want, but it won't result in onlookers knowing why you did what you did. You were probably lying.

I think it's very rare to give reasons for firing someone.

If someone was a bad performer, they team knows it's because of bad performance, but reasons given will be "cost cutting", "personal matters", or "they've moved to a better project."

If someone was fired right before vesting, and the reason given was "bad performance", everyone "knows" that management is just being cheap.

    If someone was a bad performer, they team knows it's because of 
    bad performance, but reasons given will be "cost cutting", 
    "personal matters", or "they've moved to a better project."

If I fire someone for bad performance I will absolutely tell the team that's why i fired them. I may not tell people outside the team (I don't want to bad mouth my former employee) but the team deserves the truth.

When I see someone getting fired for performance, usually the team has been complaining about them (in performance reviews or 1-1). So it's no surprise to the team and the reason isn't given.

When someone has poor but not terrible performance, it's usually accompanied by a second factor (high salary, absence). In that case, the nicer reason is usually given even though we know they were not faring that.

There also tends to be a bit of theatre before someone is fired for bad performance. "Are you sure you fixed the bug?! Give me a video. Which PR? Which line?"

I am in the camp of: Fire people before they break the morale on the team. Nothing burns a team out faster than a bad colleague.

> Nothing burns a team out faster than a bad colleague.

Ever had a bad boss?

I've had both: a bad colleague who went dancing while we were struggling at 23 PM in the data center for a government project, and a really shitty PM whose incompetence ruined a lot of people personally. Both can have adverse effects on people, although a bad boss in an otherwise sane environment would probably strengthen the group for being perceived as an external "enemy".

That has not been my experience with a bad boss. They do things like play favorites and create a culture where people are competing rather than cooperating. Even if they are just shitty to everyone equally I find it far easier to deal with a bad colleague than a bad boss.

> a bad colleague who went dancing while we were struggling at 23 PM in the data center

If that's your definition of a "bad colleague" I would be a little concerned. There are situations where it may be necessary to do that struggle, but in my experience there are far fewer than you think, and people often fall into a trap of competing to be the last one standing rather than actually doing good work. If you're struggling in a data center at 2300 you may well be doing more harm than good and going home to sleep (or dance, or whatever you need to refresh yourself and come back focused...) is often a better choice.

Incompetent management is far worse than a bad colleague, imo.

I always try to be pro-labor but i had such a situation in my own company. A person I tried to make work for months, the situation just got worse the OP describes (it wasn't performance issues but more attitude/social/soft-skills related). I hesitated before firing them, fearing effects on team morale. After firing them morale improved immensely.

The best thing you could have done is fire them 6 months ago. The second best is firing them today. Don't hesitate.

A decent percentage of the time the person 'management' sees as problematic is a problem because they are a threat to management not to the team.

If I had a nickle for every time management used the 'saving team morale' excuse to get rid of someone out of fear of them being promoted faster than thenselves ...

It could go the other way too.

Employee coasted, did bad work and still gets a generous payout at the end? The team could very well be bitter about it, especially considering that it's such a small company and they certainly "know" about this employee's issues.

They might figure it out by reading this AskHN too.

Rather pick what you think is fair based on circumstance and let the team know your reasoning. It's your company after all, show leadership and set the standard that you want based on your values.

Edit. The "you" here is directed at the ask hn poster, not the person I'm replying to.

The employee spent the time at the firm that it took for the vest to happen. That time is mostly already served. Yanking the promised reward like that does not send a good signal to the rest of the staff. If the employee was so bad they should have fired them long ago, for the sake of the rest of the team if that was a concern. But a month ahead of the vesting? That is a shitty move. In this scenario, the eventual firing is sufficient signal to the rest of the team that the person was not living up to their paycheck.

Being fired is not a "generous payout"; colleagues will hopefully remember that the company got rid of an underperformer, without being bitter about their stock. The parable of the workers in the vineyard comes to mind.

On the other hand, a boss screwing an employee over stock, for any reason, would set a terrible precedent of greed and untrustworthiness.

> IMO the time to fire someone is as soon as you've decided you're going to fire them.

Life tip: This also goes for relationships. Don't wait until after xmas, their birthday, whatever…