Choice that mattered.

I was asked to accept a transfer from another location to my location I managed to effectively perform a termination. I was told this person was a problem for a variety of reasons and the company feared the outcome of her termination due to her race, religion, and age, she was well protected in the eyes of the law and verbal about it.

Never did I want to bring poison into my team as a leader as I had a very good performing team that got along well. Yet as a company leader the request to accept this person was s much of a order as it was a request. I sat and listened to HR tell me I was selected due to my employment knowledge and the company left I would keep them out of a lawsuit.

Yes, I did take her on and planned on being at her location that day to greet observe and make the transition. I quickly saw one of the issues as a customer came into the store with a problem with their product. Her comment back to the customer was " let's pray about this first". In our location it was standard we greeted consumers and shook hands. I noticed after a greeting and handshake her stating " just a second let me clean my hands with sanitizer before we continue". I could only imagine how the customer felt.

My next observation was she had no idea how our product worked. I reviewed her training file and it was signed off on already yet she was clueless with most all items. I took this opening to begin a non threatening conversation about our products. I was a district subject matter expert so it lead me right into our conversation. Throughout our conversation we discussed products customer service customer experience and how she felt she could provide those.

Yes, she got retrained on products yet more important she came up with solutions to keep her religious outburst in check and shake hands. Her sales began to grow as the great team I had helped her as mentors. Meanwhile I fielded calls from HR wanting her action plans for her future termination. I made a stand " you trusted me my judgement to handle this situation, I will provide these when they are relevant to performance". HR was not happy with me especially when they received push back from our director to let me handle it.

She did leave the company about 4 months later. In her letter of resignation she thanked me for allowing her to see the light for her career direction. She had received a new position with her Church. She said without my help helping her understand working with peers and customers she could not have got the position. This was her dream.

I accepted her resignation. My conversation with HR was that the mission given me was complete.HR first comment was let me conference our company attorney and tell me what happened. You can only imaging the reply when I read the letter of resignation to them. Especially the last line, this was the best company I have ever worked for.

Mission accomplished, we grew some sales with her not much. She found the better fit for her going forward and we had no court battle cost.