A reader writes:
I’m going to be leaving my firm quickly and beginning my very own enterprise, and might want to rent assist employees. One of many workers at my present firm (Taylor) has advised me she is in search of a brand new job. I discover Taylor to be a superb worker and I’d be completely happy to have her working for me. I imagine that she enjoys working with me as properly.
The catch is that Taylor primarily works with Leslie, one in all my colleagues right here, and has finished so for a number of years. Leslie has been a mentor to me since I began working on this metropolis. She is properly favored and properly related in our discipline, whereas I’m fairly new to it.
I don’t plan on asking Taylor to come back work for me. Nonetheless, this is able to not stop her from submitting a resume if I submit a job advert, significantly if she is aware of that I will likely be hiring.
I’m frightened that if Taylor left her job to come back work for me, Leslie would see this as worker poaching and would understand this as betrayal of a mentor, even when I didn’t actively solicit Taylor to work for me. It might impression Leslie’s work as a result of she would want to rent a brand new assist staffer and practice them to her specs, which takes effort and time.
Primarily I need to protect my good relationship with Leslie, however I additionally don’t need to change into recognized in my comparatively small skilled circle because the one who left Leslie within the lurch by poaching her assist employees.
I additionally acknowledge that Taylor isn’t an indentured servant to Leslie and does have the selection of leaving at any time when she needs. If she had been to submit a resume, I’m unsure that “you’re employed for Leslie so I can’t rent you” is an efficient sufficient cause to strike her off of my record, significantly when she has labored for me earlier than and we’ve got an excellent relationship.
What are your ideas? Might I rent Taylor if she submitted a resume to work for me, or is the chance of torpedoing an excellent private relationship and an expert popularity too excessive?
I reply this query over at Inc. at the moment, the place I’m revisiting letters which were buried within the archives right here from years in the past (and typically updating/increasing my solutions to them). You can learn it right here.
