How to You Roll Back a Major Change?

I’ve had to roll back hiring decisions before, and it’s never fun.

I hired 2 different VAs from the Philippines because I wanted to buy back time on the office side. The idea made sense. I wanted help with lead follow-up, admin, outreach, CRM work, and the repetitive tasks that were pulling me away from higher-value work.

Both ended up being bad fits. Performance wasn’t where I needed it, expectations kept getting missed, and no-shows became part of the problem. Eventually I had to let both of them go. That experience taught me that creating a role because you need relief doesn’t automatically mean the role is ready, or that the person in it is the right fit.

In your situation, I’d probably separate 2 questions:

Is the position financially justified?

And is this person the right fit for it?

If the company has less capacity, margins are worse, and revenue is flat compared to last year, I think it’s fair to revisit the structure. I’d be careful about making it sound like a punishment if the bigger issue is that the role itself isn’t working the way you expected.

Something along the lines of:

“We created this position because we believed it would improve capacity and profitability. After 2 quarters, the numbers are telling us we need to restructure. I want to talk through where your strengths fit best in the company and what that transition could look like.”

They still may be disappointed. You probably can’t eliminate that. But being clear about the business reason, the numbers, and what you’ve learned gives you a much better chance of handling it respectfully than dragging out a structure that isn’t working.