As we begin a conversation on fairness, lets look a real life situation where we are asked to be fair.
You are a manager, who for budget reasons, must let go one employee. Here are your employees:
Employee 1: Your newest employee, is young and unmarried; your best producer who gets more work done effectively than any other employee.
Employee 2: A competent worker of four years, a single parent with three small children; needs the job the most.
Employee 3: A good worker and has worked for the company the longest (18 years) and is 2 years away from retirement.
Employee 4: A good producer with a terrific attitude; the hardest worker you have.
Employee 5: A competent employee, is the sibling of one of the owners of the company.
Who do you let go and why? Did you make a fair decision?
Good feedback. We'll discuss what the "right" answer is in the next post.
I have to agree with Justin, possibly one of the relatives knows of another job for employee #5. It's all in who you know after all.
I let go of Employee 5. Given the information it seems his biggest asset to the company is that he is a relative. Everyone else looks like they work harder and desire the job. Hey, at least he will get a good reference.