I’ve been in business 20+ years - starting alone for the first years. Built it up and now have 5 employees. Recently I have been talking to my employees about buying into the company as I am nearing retirement. I gave two of my employees raises one of them a percentage based on his production. after that I got total silence never a thank you or anything so that caused some concern right there. One of the employees was receiving over $1000 a month raise. Recently I got Covid-19’s bad and was out for 2 months. I I have cameras at work so me and my partner were reviewing the cameras and noticed they were talking a lot of shit about me and making plans to start their own business I’m presuming stealing all the high-end clients. The Reality is that is if you put employee in the responsibility of dealing with clients you have to deal with the prospect that he might steal them eventually. less people and less drama and possibly hiring subcontractors to handle the business that I pay these people a lot of the time to stand around and do nothing might be better. We have a established a business location and will probably be fine. previously I’ve been talking with my right hand man about my exit strategy but now I want to talk to him about his exit strategy, one of the employees is poison to the others I can hear him talking shit about me and the business. I’m sure a lot of you experience the same type of situation’s any advice on how you handled it and the outcomes thereof would be appreciated thanks guys
Fire the bad employee immediately. One bad apple spoils the rest. And the stress he’s going to give you is not worth it.
Also - I would bet good money they will never follow through and start the same business. Employees can talk big talk all they want, but at the end of the day most people are lazy and addicted to the consistent paycheck coming in. Once they get out swinging on their own and deal with the adversity you had in the early years, 95% people quit. They just can’t rough it and realize they don’t want it bad enough.
But yeah - fire his ass. Then talk to all employees. I’m mad for you - you gave folks a raise and they want to shit talk you? Ridiculous. Might need to fire a few more. But def fire the ring leader and then have a talk with the remaining about why. If you did a one on one with each also and asked “What are your goals?” you could probably discern who’s interested in seriously running the company. Maybe you don’t sell it to them but you just promote them and work less.
Last - you should probably just sell the company to a real suitor, not your employees. Again - most employees just want the paycheck and security. They don’t really want to be the owner and boss. Start listing the business if you’re serious and talk with some brokers about how to optimize for selling and multiples.
Good luck and happy thanksgiving