Is it a case of better the devil you know? Whether it be professionally or personally, we’ve all experienced that feeling where someone has become, for lack of a better word, stale. They don’t fulfil your needs like they used to, the care factor isn’t there and quite frankly they leave you wondering if life would be better off without them?

I had a chat with a contact the other day who has been feeling all the above…

They run a small business and have had an employee for 5+ years, who has been there from essentially day one. However, as time has ticked on, their progress has not, and whilst they do a ‘good’ job there are a few consistent performance issues that keep rearing their heads.

This business is currently a two-man band, so understandably, they’re nervous to face the unknown of life without them and start ‘seeing’ other people.

Without having a HR team in place to performance manage this, it can no doubt feel like another taxing (and quite daunting) task to add to the never-ending to-do list. However, after sitting down and talking through the needs of the business, the direction and future growth plans, the answer to build a role to support the business and go in search of the RIGHT employee seemed like a no-brainer.

As any SME owner knows, there comes a point where you have to start working ‘on’ the business rather than ‘in’ it if you want to achieve some serious milestones. That means growing a team who possess a growth mindset – you’re only as strong as your weakest link.