Voting on new employees
This WP article shares an interesting and rare practice from US grocery chain Whole Foods, that has me feeling a little conflicted:
New hires are voted in — or out — by their teams after their first 90 days at the company. A two-thirds majority is required to keep an employee on board.
The employees quoted like the system because:
Existing employees can get rid of new coworkers who don’t pull their weight
New hires get a sense of acceptance themselves because their coworkers have actively chosen to keep them
I’m torn on this. On the one hand I see obvious benefits but on the other hand I can also see some pitfalls. What if someone with a grudge against a new hire campaigns to get that person fired? What if employees see this as management abdicating their responsibility? What if a new hire who gets fired sees this as a rejection by his peers, rather than just a corporate decision?
Read the article and let me know what you think. Is this something you’d like to see introduced in your workplace?
UPDATE: Apparently the article may be explaining the practice wrong. Here’s a comment on reddit from a Whole Foods employee:
It doesn’t really work out as one might assume from the title of this post. No one is fired by vote. Feedback is collected on the new hire’s performance from all of the existing long term people on the team. It is shared with the new person and either his/her probation period is over or extended according to the performance ratings received by the fellow team members. WFM utilizes the same progressive discipline practices used at most large companies.
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