For a Project in troubled waters is it better to retain employees or cut them?

Hi Samir, I suggest you sack yourself! Ok, jokes apart, the inputs are a bit obscure. We are not certain, if the project was hit by recession. The past performance of the employee is a doubt. But, can safely assume, that the present performance is worse than the past. The situation conveys that the employee's past performance was never gauged, and now, with the project sinking, it was discovered. Recession related situations and performance related situations are seperate issues and need a clear perpective to reach solutions. In this case I would suggest that the employee should seek employment elsewhere, the management needs doctoring.

With respect to the specific scenario, here are some observations

1.The project being in troubled waters may not necessarily be driven by an individual bad performing employee(team member to be precise).Has the PM done problem analysis holistically?

2.The fact that the team member's performance deviation is a recent phenomenon,Isn't it the responsibility of the PM to wear his/her leader/motivator hat?

If the above questions have been looked into and the resolution seems to be the expulsion of the team member from the project, than so be it.

Otherwise, analyze the problem holistically lest one ends up replacing one scape goat with another

I firmly agreed with the argument that bad performing employee should be retain. When company is going to bad condition, the employee is not responsible as it is team work. The HRD of company should think about the worker who is bad performing. Second thing we shold think in broad way, the fellow may performing very good in starting but due to mental stress and helth problem he might be performing not up to the mark or as per expectations of board directors. Second you think who is responsible for keeping higher target for performance of employee in this bad period? Your goals are in co-ordination with the present situation?

The company may take the services of outsider to reduce the mental stress and fatigs of their employees is good way. Second company should take the review of the employees health to find the reason behind their poor performance. If there are chance for improvement than they should use this option. The real reason at present is all companies think for higher and present situation is not that good and for poor performance we held someone responsible. This type of mentality we should avoid.Its better for you to think in different manner meance using this men power in other work area you might get benefits for your company and you need not to need the outsource this work. So otherwise if you are firm to cut the employee than first cut the boss who suggest earlier for requirement of employee and now he want this fellow must remove from the company for poor performance as he is also responsible for the performance of that employee for lack of supervision.

The employees are the assets of the company if the assets are been thrown out of the orginisation then the company is loosing its assets. The person may not be performing the right work but he can be plased in other work in which he may be expert he can perform betten in that work. the traning which we have given to him shoud be used in this situation its right time to test it. 

It is always said that in Turbulent times one must always stick to the resources it has and has to put all the resources to work in such a manner that they produce results.

Even if few projects are in water there are lot of opportunities, one must not cut the employee but motivate them to work hard with the management to fight and overcome the situation.

What happens is the company takes a pro active decision of cuting the employees but if in near term the company gets one project they will again need the employees and the cost of recruiting the employees then will be very high...

Mr Darshil is right. The Company should not cut the employees as they are the main wealth creator of the firm. Also this process will effect the image of the organization as well.