Would you have made the same call for someone you could replace in six weeks?
Leader POV: It took you nine months to hire him. He's just passed probation and is already involved in client work that nobody else can do. Then he calls from his bereavement leave to say he needs to extend it and he doesn't know for how long. 🤦♀️
This one isn't hypothetical. It happened in one of my previous HR roles, and I've thought about it many times since.
Nine months, by the way, is long enough to grow an entire human being. That's roughly how the search felt. His expertise was so niche that it made us believe in unicorns and other mythical creatures. 🦄
So, what were the options? An interim replacement was out of the question. The market for his profile was a very short list with a very long invoice attached.
In addition, we had no idea when our guy would be ready to come back and our policies didn't cover extreme scenarios like that one.
We could have discussed a mutual termination of the contract and start the search again. But, in the end, we agreed on unpaid leave. We put it in writing, both sides signed it, stayed in touch with him and we reviewed it every three to four weeks.
He came back almost seven months later. Even then, his energy took a lot longer to follow him. He had been through a really hard time, and a big part of my job became reminding his leader to go slow and doing weekly check-ins with both of them. Push too hard, too soon, and we would have swapped a long leave for a #burnout.
Was it the human thing to do? Yes. Did it make business sense? Also yes. Going back to the market would have cost us far more than seven months of patience.
Nevertheless, I'll be honest: the business case made the decision easier. When someone is that hard to replace, keeping their seat warm is generous and convenient at the same time.
We talk a lot about investing in the #talent we hire. Most days, that means a training budget and a decent onboarding plan. This was the extreme version, with no policy to lean on. Just judgment and a calendar reminder every few weeks.
⁉️ Would you have made the same call for someone you could replace in six weeks?
🌟Sparking Leadership # 62: a weekly series on human-centered sustainable #leadership. Reach out if you want to become the best leader you can be or follow for more sparkling content. In the meantime, lead with spark! ✨️
