agonyaunt | Ask a Manager: How do I manage an employee who doesn't need the job?

I have a very small company with only two employees plus my business partner and my wife, who does the accounting. The most senior of my two employees is Jean, whose husband is a very highly paid professional and her family is wealthy. Before working for me, she dabbled but had never had a real job.

Jean is quite brilliant, but has made it clear several times in the four years she’s been with us that she doesn’t work for the money, but works because she loves the job.

I feel that we have no leverage over her at all. Recently she decided that she wanted to be home with her teenage children for a whole month before one of them goes out to boarding school, and she announced that she was taking a month of unpaid leave. I realized that had I refused, she would have simply quit, and that would be disastrous for the business because of the institutional knowledge she holds and all our clients love her and always sing her praises. We would also probably have two hire two people to replace her, because she’s very versatile (graphic design, copywriting, strategy, account manager, etc). This situation makes me uncomfortable and I don’t know how to go about it. What do you think I should do?

You should manage all of your employees as if they don’t “need” their jobs and have other options — whether those options are family money or the ability to go out and get another job with their skills.

There are two reasons for that:

1. Assuming you’re hiring good people, it’s very likely they do have other options. It might be a pain for someone to leave and find another job, but generally it’s something people are able to do.

2. Using someone’s paycheck as your primary leverage might be effective in the very short-term, but it’s rarely a way to build or retain an engaged, invested staff in the long-term.

The way you motivate someone who doesn’t need the money is the same way you should motivate people who do need the money: by giving them meaningful roles with real responsibility where they can see how their efforts contribute to a larger whole, giving them an appropriate amount of ownership over their work and input into decisions that involve that work, providing useful feedback, recognizing their contributions, helping them feel they’re making progress toward things that matter to them, and — importantly — not doing things that de-motivate people (like yelling or constantly shifting goals or generally being a jerk).

It sounds like your concern is that Jean might feel she can do whatever she wants, including things like just announcing she’s taking a month off rather than asking (and not giving you any real choice if you want to retain her). And maybe you’re worried about how else that could play out — for example, what if she decides she’ll only stay if you fire Client X (or Employee X) or if you use her sister’s catering business for the office party or if she can work just three hours a day and wear a sparkly dragon outfit to work.

But the thing is, everyone who works for you has deal-breakers, things that they’d leave over if they don’t get what they want. Jean probably just has more of them than other people, because she doesn’t need the paycheck. The choice for you, though, is the same as it would be with any other employee: you’ve got to decide if what she wants is something you’re willing to accommodate in exchange for being able to keep her working for you.

The best thing you can do, for both you and Jean, is to be very clear-eyed about what you are and aren’t willing to work around. That doesn’t need to start as an absolute statement of “You cannot do X”; it usually should start as a conversation — something like, “I know that taking a month off is important to you. I’m concerned about the timing because we won’t have a way to cover Y while you’re out, and I’m concerned that we’ll be setting a precedent where if we approve it for you, we’ll have to approve it for others. But at the same time, you do great work and we want the job to be one that fits in with your other priorities in life. Is there a different way we could handle this so we’re both getting what we need?” Who knows — maybe Jean will say she could still handle Urgent Thing Y from home that month, or come up with another solution that makes it more workable for you. Or maybe she’ll say no, this isn’t something she’ll compromise on. If that’s the case, then you’d need to decide if it’s better for your business to have her away for a month or to lose her entirely.

And that’s always going to be a complicated question because you employ other people. They’ll be watching what Jean gets to do and potentially feeling resentful if she has a different set of rules than everyone else. So you need to factor the impact on other people’s morale into the overall calculation you make about what’s right for your business.

But the point is to have an honest conversation with Jean when this stuff comes up — here’s what she wants, here’s what you need, and is there a path forward that works for everyone? If there’s not, that’s okay.

That part — the “if there’s no path forward, that’s okay” part — is really, really important. Right now it sounds like you feel held hostage by Jean — that she can do whatever she wants and you have to accept it because it would be disastrous if she left. That’s a bad place to be, and you can’t stay there if you want to run things effectively. Jean will leave at some point, because all employees leave at some point. If that means you’ll have to hire two people to replace her because of the amount of work she does, start planning for that now. If your business relies on having one magical person who does the work of two people, that’s not sustainable no matter how committed they seem — because things change. People get sick, are hit by buses, move, take on new family obligations, get better offers, change their goals in life, etc.

Similarly, if Jean’s institutional knowledge isn’t documented anywhere, make it a priority to change that. If clients love her and would be upset if she left, start building your network of other people with great client service skills so that you’re not starting from scratch when she leaves (because again, she will leave at some point). Your business plan can’t be “keep person X at all costs” because that will always, always fail at some point.

And this isn’t just about Jean. The best thing you can do is to assume everyone will leave at some point and plan accordingly, and get in the habit of having honest conversations with all of them about what you can and can’t do to accommodate the things they want from their jobs and the company. The framework you want isn’t “how can we keep this person/control this person at all costs” but rather “let’s see if we can figure out a way for our interests to continue to align.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I always figured that at least a plurality of managers enjoy dangling employees's pay over the heads. It was very useful for this manager to say as much.

Good for you, Jean. It's polite to give your coworkers a bit more head's up before being gone for a month, but in general, good for you for being immune to the strong arm tactics this LW is upset about not being able to use on you.

I love this response.

And, yes — this is a crappy business owner, who thinks that only threats to livelihood keep employees in line, but has obviously not been keeping good documentation of Jean’s “institutional knowledge,” which is necessary for ANY job role.

He's both sadistic and irresponsible. It's HIS business, one woudl think he would want to own the necessary information, but no, he just wants to be upset he can't own this employee. What an ass.

...I haven't even read the letter, just seen the heading, and WHAT THE FUCK?

tl;dr, her husband has a very high-paying job. So LW says I feel that we have no leverage over her at all.

All you need to know about this jerkwad.

Even without knowing that: there are a raft of reasons that people might work a job without needing that specific job.

Silicon Valley tech is full of people who don't need that specific job. I worked at a place that was taken over by management who didn't get it. They lost half their engineering staff in less than a year.

Isn't an employee who works hard enough for two people and who loves their job the supposed ideal of managers everywhere? At least, that's what job listings tell me that managers want. How very shocking that this manager doesn't agree. /s

Good on Jean for knowing her own worth. There's a lot of freedom in not letting yourself be pressured by your job.

Good heavens, this woman has a concept of a work life balance? Whatever shall LW do!?

I hate the LW so much. So, so much.

Ask a Manager: How do I manage an employee who doesn't need the job?

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