Hiring Replacements

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December 30, 2025

by a searcher from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - Kenan-Flagler Business School in Austin, TX, USA

Operators: How do you tackle hiring replacements for a bad actor in a critical role? Naturally, you don't want a critical seat empty for an extended period of time, so you might not want to wait until you fire them to hire someone new, especially when the recruiting time could be months. Or frame it better, you don't want to fire them until you have someone else lined up due to the long lead time to fill the seat. Great employees are typically not dying to start a new job tomorrow. Unsurprisingly, people that know they are not a good fit for the company (several warnings, improvement plans, etc.) are often job hunting as well and have alerts for roles that match their skills in said city, so they will see the job posting.
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Reply by a searcher
in Raleigh, NC, USA
In my experience, fire quickly when you know the fit isn't there. When we bought our plumbing company, at the meeting where the seller introduced us, one of the guys just didn't fit. Everyone was happy and joking around. The mood was generally light. He was slumped in his chair and snuck out the back door. He was also the lead salesman, having closed 1.4M in sales the previous year. We tried to work with him for a couple months but he was toxic and everyone avoided him.... but for some reason that guy could sell. We concentrated on getting someone trained to replace him and wanted to try and bring him around until he pushed too far, lashed out on one of our best techs. We fired him that day and the next day, literally everyone was thanking us. We hurt for a little bit due to lost sales but we got back on track and the culture improved immediately. Meetings felt better and we set the precedent of what will and will not be tolerated.
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Reply by a professional
from University of California, Hastings College of Law in Petaluma, California, United States
This is one of the harder operational decisions post-close - and most people underestimate how long it actually takes to get it right. The timing tension you're describing is real, but there's a layer underneath it that's worth naming: in most LMM businesses, the person you're replacing was hired by the founder and has been there a long time. The role itself often isn't cleanly defined - it's whatever that person did. Before you post anything, it's worth asking whether you actually want to replace the role as it existed or redesign it for what the business needs now. On the posting visibility problem - a few things that work: recruiting through a search firm with a confidential brief, going direct to networks rather than job boards, and using fractional coverage to stabilize the seat while you take the time to hire right rather than fast. We work with operators and sponsors on exactly this kind of situation post-close - happy to share more about how we approach it if useful.
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