Keep the right people, and fire the rest, start-up founders tell SCMP Game Changers Forum

Start-ups should be more aggressive about firing underperforming employees quickly, according to Hong Kong business founders.

Speaking at the South China Morning Post Game Changers Forum on Tuesday, Cat Purvis, founder of software development company Exicon, said that letting staff go can be crucial, especially to create space for those who are willing to learn in an increasingly dynamic field of industries and ever-changing, digitally inflected world.

“One of our core values in our company is ‘always be learning’ and we realise when people in our company who are not always learning … they don’t stay, so if we can manage that interview process right to find someone who’s always learning, we’ve got them,” Purvis said.

To find new staff, especially hard-to-find developers, the start-up takes recommendations from existing employees and invites developers into the office for paired programming to help build up the small community in Hong Kong.

Purvis, who is now on her seventh company, said employees who underperform should be fired quickly to avoid other team members having to take on an extra burden and save costs.

“Our best mistake was actually not holding on to somebody that I thought we really needed … if somebody’s not doing their job you’ve got to get rid of them and get rid of them fast, I’ve wasted so much salary on various people,” Purvis said.