I think it’s one of the most important questions you can ask in an interview (as the applicant): does the organisation allow poor performers to stay in their roles? How is performance measured, and how is poor performance treated?
Then you can decide if you like the answers. For me personally, an answer like “performance is evaluated on (X objective criteria). Poor performers are given 3 months to demonstrate improvement on said criteria and then managed out” is good.
A refusal to answer, or waffling about how much we believe in our people, how our process ensures we don’t hire bad performers, how we develop people, etc. is bad.
Devil's advocate: Why is it a bad sign if the situation doesn't come up often enough for a formal process to have emerged?
(I'll also note that this query will lead to the interviewers wondering things like "Are they trying to figure out if they can game the system? Or are they going to try and get people they disagree with fired? Are they trying to play any games in general?" etc...)
> Why is it a bad sign if the situation doesn't come up often enough for a formal process to have emerged?
It isn’t necessarily, like if you are about to be employee #1. But even then you want to hear that the person (presumably cofounder) you’re talking to has considered it and will move useless ppl on.
It’s not black and white. You would be looking for a better answer from a more established team.
Consider Netflix famous presentation where it states right in there what they will do, because “it’s a sports team not a family” and they understand the massive collateral damage a single bad performer can have.
> Are they trying to figure out if they can game the system?
Yes it’s possible but a senior person at a company that does in fact have high-performing management probably won’t think that, especially if you ask it tactfully and with context. (“I have had some previous experiences where a single poor performer really dragged down the performance and morale of the whole team, how would you handle something like that here?”)
Then you can decide if you like the answers. For me personally, an answer like “performance is evaluated on (X objective criteria). Poor performers are given 3 months to demonstrate improvement on said criteria and then managed out” is good.
A refusal to answer, or waffling about how much we believe in our people, how our process ensures we don’t hire bad performers, how we develop people, etc. is bad.