TrashDispatch- Can Unpopular Workers Be Fired?

Trash Dispatch:

Can Unpopular Workers Be Fired?

The above question was posted (at digg.com) as a headline to a story at CNNMoney.
Upon investigation I found that the original headline read…

“Can I fire an unpopular worker?”
“Unpleasant personality traits can be grounds for termination.” …

… the story by Anne Fisher- was actually a question that was posed to FORTUNE Small Business with the following story…

“– Dear FSB: One of my employees is pretty capable, but she lacks people skills. No one in the office likes dealing with her. Recently she called me at home at 9 P.M. on a Friday, crying and saying she was typing up her résumé because the entire staff was against her. I listened, and then hinted that it wasn’t the time or place to discuss this. Now office tension is high. Can I tell this woman that, because she said she was updating her résumé, I assume she’s given notice?

- Joanna, Portsmouth, N.H. “

In response, FSB wrote; “Dear Joanna: Not quite.”

read more at FSB | digg FSB story

At digg, (as of this posting), there have been 310 Comments, with 791 actual diggs. (a “digg” is like, a community member’s approval for a story’s legitimacy. If you like a story, you digg it “up”. If not, you Bury it. But I digress…)

Here are some of the comments submitted to digg;

from-
“Hermiod” (http://digg.com/users/Hermiod) said;
If this person is doing her job at an acceptable level then there is no reason to fire her. It’s her colleagues whose behaviour should be corrected. It should not matter to a professional whether you like a colleague or not. Nobody is asking them to invite an unpopular colleague out for drinks after work, just to treat them with respect and professional courtesy. If they can’t do that then it is their future with the company that should be questioned, not the unpopular person.

“doctordbx” (http://digg.com/users/doctordbx) said;
My personal view is that business is not a popularity contest but moreso situations like this arise from poor strategic management of an organisation, i.e. people are not aligned with the vision or goals and are more focused on ‘what’s for lunch?’ and ‘look at that bitch!’

I’m not saying employees shouldn’t look to have a social element in the workplace, to the contrary there should be a positive effort to create one - just focus it around the reason why the company is there… i.e. teams of people with shared goals.

Of course, the challenge is to do also do this without creating a total Dilbert experience.
Also you will find people that bitch a lot about other employees and play popularity games are either smokescreening, incompetent or have nothing to do. Sad but true.

“DangerCollie” (http://digg.com/users/DangerCollie) said;
I’m not sure about the laws in New Hampshire but if it’s an “at will” state, you don’t need a reason to fire someone. And a disruptive personality is a good reason in my book. I’ve fired gifted programmers and designers because they were jagoffs to work with and, on one occasion, because of after hours activities. In the tech business you sometimes have colorful personalities and that’s part of the attraction of the business. But when that color starts coloring the entire company, you gotta make a choice between one disruptive employee and the health of the organization. It’s a no brainer, give her two weeks to find a new job and hustle her butt out the door. Make it clear to the other employees that she was let go because of an inability to get along. That will give them a feeling that they have some measure of control over their work environment. You don’t want too much of that feeling out there, but a little bit is very empowering.

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Or, you may submit your comment to the digg story “HERE”.

Or even at FSB “HERE” .