Potential for personality conflicts increases with new hires

Editor’s note: Michelle Stockman works with Little Rock-based Arkansas Capital Corp. to promote entrepreneurship development around the state. Stockman earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University-Chicago in communications and fine arts, and earned a master’s in entrepreneurship from Western Carolina University. Her thoughts on business success appear each Monday on The City Wire.

Employees are both a blessing and sometimes a curse at the same time for business owners. Adding staff to your business is a sign your company is healthy and growing. On the flip side, adding employees also means different personalities are entering your work place.

While each employee brings their skills and talents to your business, there is also a chance that you will run into hiring a “problem” employee. When you have an employee who is chronically late, sick often, producing little work or creating animosity within the workplace, you need to take quick action.

Implementing an employee manual, enforcing the rules published in the manual and creating a record of corrective actions taken with the employee will protect the business in case the employee is terminated from the company. Likewise, in working with the employee, it is beneficial to see if the role within the company is a good match. If not, you can move the employee into a new role that may be a better fit or terminate the individual.

If the individual has problems outside the position, it is better to remove the “bad” employee before the individual effects the rest of your staff. Repairing the damage done to remainder of the staff can be more costly than moving on from hiring the individual.