My new employee doesn’t get our small business culture. Help!

Dear Aunty,

We have just hired a mature male from a large company. We got him through a headhunter and he interviewed very well, although he did make a comment in passing about the business looking like it was run on the smell of an oily rag.

The problem he has is adjusting to doing a number of tasks at once even though he said in the interview he was fine with that.

And there are some things he just refuses to do. Although he is account manager he won’t go on sales calls just to provide technical support and make sure the Power Point runs smoothly because he “doesn’t do selling”.

He has also refused to fill in one of the sales spreadsheets the way we want. And he keeps making pointed references to things that we don’t have. Like every time he comes back from the kitchen with a glass of water he says “oh, for a water cooler”.

The last straw was this morning when I told him as he is the last on board he gets to hide the Easter eggs on Thursday and make sure no one cheats, to which he replied that he was too old to participate and would watch, thank you very much. We have had the Easter egg hunt tradition in the office for 11 years and no one has ever refused to run around, squeal, cheat, steal eggs from other baskets and then make themselves sick on chocolate.

Do I tell him it is the Easter way or the highway?

A fed up bunny

Dear fed up bunny,

What a pain. What did you hire him for? Yes, you may not have a water cooler but quite frankly only wankers want to drink water out of an upturned bottle that has a gurgle like a death rattle? Luke warm tap water from pipes that for some crazy reason run on the outside of our building and heat up on a hot day is a treat I wish on you all.

Look, it’s time for a little chat. Explain to him all the good things there are about being in a small business. You can communicate daily with your boss – when did he last get to call his boss a cheat in an Easter egg hunt? You are a decision maker – you may well decide to hide the eggs in completely different spots this year and people will think you are innovative – not annoying.

And once you make a decision, things happen quickly And you get to see the results: like an office full of people high on sugar.

Seriously, tell him it is important he gets your culture. You work hard, everyone pitches in, you get the job done and then you do something nice together. Sounds alright to me!

Good luck!

Your Aunty B

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