THE CAPITAL MISTAKE: SHEDDING LONGTERM EMPLOYEES FOR SUCCESS?

Your friend just got dumped by his spouse because he asked her to replace their 30-year-old family car. It was dying on him once a month and the replacement parts were extremely expensive. 

Instead of helping him out, she said: "That's it, you're out. Bye." - and started to look for a new partner pretty soon. 

Does this sound ridiculous, even a bit ironic to you now? Why are managers doing the same with their employees though?

If you're in the management of a company and find yourself considering to oust employees that have been with you for a decade or two solely for the reason to replace them with young blood, you're not going to like my opinion:

What you're doing is not going to lead to success in the long run, but likely a capital mistake, rooted in your inability or laziness of dealing with staff. (Yes, that's the TL;DR version; if you wanted to know why, read on.)

If you figure that new employees coming in might be more helpful than those who'd been there for a decade or longer, have you ever wondered why a new employee might seem more helpful to you, and what you could do about it to reconnect with your longterm employees to reactive them? Just some thoughts to help you out if you're in need for some inspiration:

Your employees lack motivation

Ask yourself: Why are new employees more motivated?

They get a new challenge, simply by changing jobs, so they are more interested at first, and maybe they took your job description as a promise that they're going to learn new exciting things that fit to their profile or general interests.

What you can do about it: Ask your old employees what new challenge within the company or their department they'd like, or find out if there are any tasks that are boring the sh*t out of them and could be shifted over to junior employees, or be automated. 

Your employees keep asking for a raise

Ask yourself: Why don't new employees do that?

They likely already earn more starting you than in their previous job, and feel the need to prove themselves (or survive the trial period) before they ask you for a raise, but rest assured, they will eventually. 

What you can do about it: Your longterm employee lacks your appreciation. New employees might have left their old job because of the same reason, and start with you because you accepting them, or even reaching out to them for recruitment, does indeed feel like appreciation, and the promise to get more of that in the future. Chances are applicants ask for more money than your current employee that you plan to replace (unless you plan to replace them with a junior - why would you do that?). 

Ask your longterm employee what they need, and if you're absolutely not willing to pay them more, ask what else you could offer them. It's also a good idea to think about that for yourself - if your budget doesn't allow a raise, instead of replacing someone with a lot of professional experience with a junior manager just because "young blood", there are surely other things that are valuable for your employee. 

Your employees do not adapt to the company's needs

Ask yourself: Why do new employees adapt?

Because your current needs are what you (hopefully) phrased in the job description, so they know what's expected of them and made the decision to support you. You still don't know how easily they're going to adapt to any future change in your company's needs though.

What you can do about it: Introspection. The relationship between your company and your employees is pretty similar to a relationship between humans. Yes, you can expect your longstanding employees to adapt to your needs within a reasonable frame; but this goes both ways. Your employees are what makes your company. They do the work. They might even be able to hurt or help your brand outside of work, depending on how happy they are. You cannot expect your employees to be loyal to you when in turn you're not loyal to them either.

In the end, it all comes down to this:

TALK to your employees.

LISTEN to them.

INVEST into them. (If you're only thinking of your precious budget, you're still playing this management game wrong. How about your time and attention?)

WORK on your own communication and leadership skills, continuously. Just taking a weekend course with a coach so you have a certificate you can put into a nice frame is not gonna help with that.

If you have no idea what you can offer your employees to improve their environment, chances are you're either constantly unavailable for a real chat, or too intimidating, so they don't even speak up - or they actually tried a few times but you were too busy to listen to them. You cannot expect them to make themselves heard when you're not providing them the space to do so.

Why do I think old employees are valuable?

They've known your company and the development of the same over the years.

They were able to pull through whatever changes came on to them and stay loyal to you (yes, that applies even to the ones that seem to be constantly bickering about minor things; they stay for a reason).

Their experience is valuable. (If you think it's outdated - why didn't you help them update|upgrade?)

Recruiting is expensive.

It might be more expensive than you actually think - just calculate all the time that's needed to create a meaningful job description, hire recruiters or have your HR staff reach out to people, review applications, talk to applicant over the phone or invite them to your premises, and once you decided to hire someone, all the time needed until they can work entirely independently.

This might actually be more expensive as opposed to invest in professional training for your seniors, shift some tedious tasks so they got some time for new, exciting stuff (to spark their flame again). Because if they leave and take all that knowledge about your company and its development over to somewhere else, as well as all the connections they built over the years with other employees or important people in their industry, it's going to be more expensive and less efficient to replace them.

Stick to your decisions.

Once upon a time, that longterm employee you have been neglecting in the past decade was a new hire as well. You already made that decision once (or your superiors, the manager before you, etc.). If that decision had been wrong, why did you hold on to that person for so long? Reconsider if you're really comfortable admitting that your decision has not been a good one before you just move on to greener pastures. These will wither over time just as well if you don't provide them with water.

In other words: Whatever problems you're expecting to shed by getting rid off a difficult employee, you might just be replacing these with different issues with your new hire. You'll see.

It's ironic to watch companies get rid off longterm employees (or just let neglect them long enough until they leave by themselves - seriously, what's wrong with you, do you apply the same tactic to your intimate relationships?) when they complained about having to work with outdated systems that caused a number of issues. (Scroll up to the first paragraph of this article to see, again, how ironic that is. Or listen to that Alanis Morissette song.)

Lastly, and I cannot stress this enough:

Improve yourself when it comes to communication and introspection. You're working with humans. Each person you have to do with on a more-or-less regular basis is some kind of relationship, and these mean work. If you're in management, that actually is part of your job. Ditch those Medium articles for "successful leaders" or eBooks you read at 5AM after you worked on your pull-ups challenge because you learned that that's what Silicon Valley folks allegedly do, hoping that their success will somehow rub off on you without actually WORKING ON THE ROOT CAUSE. It won't.

You wouldn't take a weekend course and expect your relationship with your spouse to magically improve if you just showed them your certificate, would you? (Please say no, please say no.)