Ask a Business Expert

A: What I hear is that you have one newer employee, who could be a valuable asset to your company because of her leadership and mentoring potential, and one, more senior employee, who has done his job well enough recently to have a good review but who does not bring out the best in his co–workers. Assuming you are a non–union workplace and therefore have no prescribed path to follow, here are some suggestions:

1) Lay off both workers. Change the job description of the job being retained to more fully incorporate the role of inspiring others on the team and then let both of them reapply.

2) Recognizing the ways in which the woman will strengthen the company in the long run, keep them both (possibly using the woman to mentor others in the art of working well with others?), even if that negatively affects the bottom line now. Then enhance the paper trail of warnings of the senior employee, with specific regard to his interpersonal behaviors. Either he will then develop the skills the woman has and become more of an asset himself (unlikely) or he'll be let go with cause. In the latter case, the short time of double salary will more than pay for itself over time.

Remember, research has shown that companies that laid off without thinking things through the way you clearly are have often ended up worse off than those who retained gifted employees even when that wasn't "cost–effective".