I like the idea of trials. But I’m curious about how you deal with employees who are already employed full time? Are people reluctant to the leave the security of a job for a trial?

I think it’s telling that you described previous intelligent workers who just couldn’t get along, because that sounds like you hired kids, which makes sense because the only candidates who would agree to this practice are kids who don’t value their or their employer’s time.

This ‘culture’ BS thing really has to stop. Listen to yourselves for god sakes. Successful companies have run for HUNDREDS of years before the word ‘culture’ even entered the equation. People would get hired, they would produce, and if they didn’t they were fired, and that wasn’t even in a workers market! No professional spends his whole life training to be the best at something only to get a one week trial, or get let go because of ‘culture’ at some boutique SAS company. This is a complete cop-out by weak tech managers who are unable to be direct with an employee. It’s simple, be prudent in talent acquisition, and be swift in letting people go but treat them as professionals. This is management 101 Alex, if you want to be quantitative instead of qualitative then go be an accountant. Just because what you’re doing now worked out does not make it a good practice, nor one you should gloat about in a blog.

Getting rid of someone once they’re permanent is really difficult(at least in South Africa). Telling someone to leave due to lack of culture fit will land a business owner in court.

In South Africa an employee can leave when ever they want, but an employer can only fire someone after following an admin intensive process and even then unless you know what you’re doing or have a really good HR consultant or lawyer you could still land up in court.

A good recruitment process in this situation is key, other wise you might end up with a team of people who you don’t want to have around but can’t get rid of.

I fired 4 people at my last company and I relate to everything you’re talking about. I think some people are so used to seeing TV bosses like Donald Trump and Monty Burns that they think it’s easy, even enjoyable for a boss to fire someone.

It’s absolutely excruciating having to cut off someone from their their pay cheque and the friends they work with. It sounds weird but it’s a similar feeling to breaking up with someone you’re dating.

When I first started reading “Ask A Manager” a few years ago as a first-time manager, I really liked seeing her describe employees as “miscast,” not bad at their jobs. Just in the wrong company, the wrong role, or the wrong culture. I hear you saying the same thing here.

But my fear, as both a hiring manager and an employee, is that the industry tends to discriminate against people known to have been fired. (Even as we idolize Steve Jobs, who got himself fired by his OWN company before he became a legend!)

Do you feel your trial period gives you the freedom to offer a chance to a skilled person who wasn’t a best fit elsewhere?

Another related but much shorter question: How do you compensate in a trial? Hourly equating to more than the salary for the position, to compensate for self-employment tax?

Out of curiosity, how much value do you place on experience when hiring? Would you rather hire the marketer with 10 years of experience inside a company/startup or would you give equal weighting to the kid that started his own company within the last year but made some decent progress growing it?