Many of my clients, large and small, share a tendency to keep employees in positions for which they are ill suited far too long. The result is 360 degrees of pain and the solution seems unthinkable. It is time for new thinking.

When an employee is not a good match for the job position, those above, below, and on all sides of the employee in question suffer. The supervisor’s expenditure of time, frustration, and anxiety may exceed the total positive contribution made by the mismatched employee. Colleagues of the mismatch may be picking up slack and/or enduring abusive or unpleasant working conditions. Direct reports could be receiving anything from no support to abusive micromanagement. At the very least, they are missing out on a good role model. If you add up the total cost in time, mistakes, missed opportunities, bad precedents, the erosion of energy, the contradiction of company values, and the blow to your own credibility as a leader and manager, the cost of keeping a mismatched employee is huge.

Once you realize the full burden of the mismatch, keeping and firing are often seen as the only two choices, and the latter so reeks of surprise and cruelty that it becomes unthinkable.Those beliefs totally cloud our thinking and deserve individual attention.

Let’s start with the element of surprise. If you’ve discussed expectations and provided effective feedback regularly, a mismatched employee should recognize the mismatch as fast, or faster, than you do. And, if you’ve avoided tiptoeing around the performance and behavior issues, a decision to part ways will certainly not be a surprise, and may be quite mutual.

Second, consider the element of cruelty. In every mismatch, the employee is unhappy, if not totally miserable. Even the wonderfully hard-working, nice employee scrambling to hang on to the job is miserable because the anxiety is a quiet killer. By keeping an employee in the wrong job, you are only postponing the opportunity for a better match and the benefits that only success can bring every individual. While the current level of unemployment may make you question the possibility of a better match, don’t add one more unsubstantiated belief to the list of factors preventing you from improving the situation for all.

And third, as you’ve likely heard me say before, there are always more options than first come to mind. Keeping and firing are usually not the only choices. Changing the employee’s position or responsibilities is often an option. This is particularly true when the mismatch was created by a bad promotion, a far too common occurrence in which the excellent technician is promoted to supervisor, despite having little inclination or aptitude for managing anything other than daily tasks. While egos may seem a formidable barrier to demotion and change, the reality is that egos can heal if given time, space, and a little face-saving positive spin. When I have helped clients make this decision, the collective sigh of relief is pervasive. Just be sure you don’t shuffle a misfit from one mismatched position to another.

Employment is a negotiation between two parties. Employees should seek jobs that fit their strengths and interests, and employers should seek employees who fill their needs. Neither wins when employee strengths and interests are out of alignment with business needs. Work with your employees to discover unhealthy mismatches and explore sensible alternatives. But once the writing is on the wall, gracefully (and legally) help them out the door.