A reader writes:
I’m going to be leaving my firm quickly and beginning my very own enterprise, and might want to rent help employees. One of many staff at my present firm (Taylor) has informed me she is on the lookout for a brand new job. I discover Taylor to be a wonderful worker and I’d be completely satisfied to have her working for me. I consider that she enjoys working with me as effectively.
The catch is that Taylor primarily works with Leslie, certainly one of 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 effectively preferred and effectively linked in our subject, whereas I’m fairly new to it.
I don’t plan on asking Taylor to return work for me. Nevertheless, this is able to not stop her from submitting a resume if I put up a job advert, notably if she is aware of that I shall be hiring.
I’m fearful that if Taylor left her job to return 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 will affect Leslie’s work as a result of she would want to rent a brand new help 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 turn into identified in my comparatively small skilled circle because the one who left Leslie within the lurch by poaching her help employees.
I additionally acknowledge that Taylor will not be an indentured servant to Leslie and does have the selection of leaving every time she needs. If she have been to submit a resume, I’m undecided that “you’re employed for Leslie so I can’t rent you” is an efficient sufficient cause to strike her off of my checklist, notably when she has labored for me earlier than and we’ve relationship.
What are your ideas? Might I rent Taylor if she submitted a resume to work for me, or is the danger of torpedoing private relationship and knowledgeable repute too excessive?
I reply this query over at Inc. at present, the place I’m revisiting letters which were buried within the archives right here from years in the past (and generally updating/increasing my solutions to them). You can learn it right here.
