I own a small business. I hired one college student to work part time for me doing sales (mostly emails and some calls).
He works hard but really struggles with organization and professionalism. He has missed meetings, come in disheveled/smelly, misspelled names/e-mails, comes in late, and overall struggles maintaining professionalism on the phone.
We’ve had numerous conversations about professionalism. He always has a good response and I’ll notice an improvement the next few days, but there’s always regression.
This morning I noticed something was bothering him, and he told me he broke up with his girlfriend on Saturday. I felt bad and offered to help however I can. We had a phone meeting at 10am and he was very clearly still upset on the call and did not sound professional at all. The meeting didn’t go well and I was pretty upset afterwards, but havent said anything to him yet. I get breaking up is tough, but they were only together for a couple of months.
I feel like I’m ready to fire him. I feel bad because he’s a nice kid and always promises to work harder and fix his mistakes - but how many times do I have to remind him to be professional? Is there something else I can do to teach him?
Any advice would be great!
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