You Should Know by Day 90: How to Hire and Keep A Players
The first 90 days of a new hire tell you a whole lot. Not necessarily whether they have mastered every piece of the job, because some roles take longer to learn than others. But by day 90, you should absolutely know their trajectory.
Are they headed toward becoming an A player? Or are they showing you that they are going to become a problem for your company, your culture, and your best people?
That is the real question.
A big idea from Leila Hormozi puts it well: if somebody is not an A player by 90 days, they may never be one. I do not completely agree with that exact statement. Some people need more time to develop skills. But I do agree with the bigger point: by 90 days, you should know whether you have an A player in the making.
You are not evaluating job mastery in the first 90 days. You are looking at their character, their habits, their attitude, and whether they are moving in the right direction.
The First 90 Days Are a Trajectory Test
It is easy to get caught up in whether a new person is already great at the technical parts of the job. Can they swing the hammer? Can they run the equipment? Can they manage the software? Can they handle customers without help?
Those things matter, but skill can be taught. Character shows up much faster.
During the first 90 days, pay attention to the qualities that will determine whether this person can become a long-term contributor:
- Ownership: Do they take responsibility when something goes wrong, or do they immediately blame someone else?
- Coachability: Can they take correction without getting defensive?
- Work ethic: Do they put in effort, follow through, and do what they said they would do?
- Attitude: Do they show up ready to work, or do they constantly complain and create excuses?
- Core value fit: Do they live by the rules your company says it believes in?
- Improvement: Are they becoming more capable and more independent each month?
You do not need somebody to be perfect. You do need evidence that they are becoming great.
That is a much better standard than expecting total mastery after three months.
When People Show You Their True Colors, Believe Them
I have used this saying for years: when someone shows you their true colors, believe them.
Sometimes you sit across from somebody in an interview and think, “This is the person. This is who I want on my team.” They tell you all the right things. They say they are hardworking, team oriented, dependable, and excited to grow.
Then, one or two weeks into the job, something changes. You start asking yourself, “Where is the person I interviewed?”
It can feel like a bait and switch.
If someone tells you they are going to do A, B, and C, then shows up and does the opposite, do not ignore it. Do not build a story around why it will probably get better. Pay attention to what they are actually doing.
The early signs can be obvious:
- “I do not get paid enough for this.”
- “That is not my job.”
- Constant excuses for missed expectations.
- Blaming teammates, managers, customers, or circumstances.
- Repeatedly refusing coaching or correction.
- Doing the same thing wrong over and over again.
Those are not just little frustrations. They are signals.
Believe the signals.
Your Core Values Must Be the Rules of the Game
Core values are not inspirational words slapped on a wall behind the front desk. They are not there to make the company look good. They need to be the actual rules of the game.
At New Clean, our core values are simple:
- Be honest
- Work together
- Have fun
- Make money
Those values tell people what an A player looks like in our company. They give us a standard for hiring, coaching, promoting, and letting people go.
Every business needs that standard. If you have not clearly established your core values, you are behind. I know that sounds blunt, but it is true.
You cannot expect people to consistently make good decisions if they do not know the rules. You also cannot build a healthy culture if nobody understands what behavior is acceptable and what behavior is not.
Strong core values help you answer questions like these:
- Does this person handle mistakes honestly?
- Do they work with the team or against the team?
- Do they make work better for the people around them?
- Do they bring a positive energy, or do they bring drama?
- Are they helping the business grow and make money, or are they making every day harder?
Your values should guide real decisions, not decorate a conference room.
Do Not Confuse Talent With Being an A Player
Some of the most dangerous employees are talented people who are a terrible fit for the company.
They might get the work done. Customers may even like them. They might be smart, experienced, and highly capable at the technical side of the job.
But if they gossip, stay negative, create drama, undermine leadership, or divide the team, they are not an A player.
They are slowly poisoning the well.
This is where business owners get themselves into trouble. They hang onto the person because they are talented. They can do the work. They fill a needed role. Maybe they are difficult to replace.
But while you are busy trying to coach that talented C player along, they may be chasing away the people you cannot afford to lose.
Think about your best foreman, your most trusted manager, or your right hand person. What happens when they get tired of carrying extra weight because somebody else is constantly creating problems?
Eventually, they start asking themselves:
- Why am I trying so hard?
- Why am I carrying this extra load?
- Why does this person get away with acting like that?
- Why am I still working here?
That is the nightmare scenario. You keep the wrong person too long and lose the right person because of it.
Your Best Employees Are Always Paying Attention
Your A players are watching what you tolerate.
They see who gets away with mediocrity. They see who violates company values without consequences. They see who creates drama while everybody else has to pick up the pieces.
You may not always see the extra load your best people are carrying, but they feel it.
Your standard is not what you say. Your standard is what you tolerate.
There is a lesson often used in parenting that applies here too: things are caught, not taught. Your team learns the real company standard by seeing what happens when somebody fails to meet it.
If your people see that bad behavior is ignored because somebody is talented or because you are short staffed, they learn that excellence is not actually required.
Once that message starts spreading through the company, it takes a long time to fix. It can lead to declining work quality, lower morale, employee turnover, and a culture that no longer resembles what you wanted to build in the first place.
Train Inexperience, Fire the Wrong Trajectory
Do not fire someone just because they are inexperienced. A person can make mistakes and still be exactly the type of employee you want to keep.
The key is knowing the difference between someone who needs training and someone who is headed in the wrong direction.
People Worth Training
Give more time, coaching, and support to people who show signs like these:
- They make mistakes but own them.
- They accept feedback and apply it.
- They work hard, even when the job is difficult.
- They are improving over time.
- They are becoming more independent.
- They fit the company’s core values.
- They genuinely want to get better.
I have hired people who took longer to learn the work than others. But they cared. They fit the values. They worked hard. They improved. They took feedback. Those are the people you stay patient with.
Skills can come with time when the person has the right foundation.
People You Need to Address Quickly
Be careful with the person who is talented but shows the wrong trajectory:
- They get defensive whenever they are corrected.
- They blame everyone else for their mistakes.
- They repeat the same problems without changing.
- They do not care about improving.
- They create drama with coworkers.
- They violate core values whenever it is convenient.
- They undermine leadership behind the scenes.
They may be able to do the job well. They may be productive. But if they are quietly undermining the company, their talent is not worth what it costs you.
Use a 30, 60, and 90 Day Hiring Review
You do not need some complicated corporate HR process to evaluate a new hire. You just need to stop and ask better questions at 30, 60, and 90 days.
Use these checkpoints to evaluate trajectory instead of just evaluating job mastery.
Step 1: Review Their Improvement
Ask yourself:
- Are they improving?
- Are they learning from their mistakes?
- Are they becoming more valuable every month?
- Are they becoming more independent?
You are looking for progress. A great employee does not need to know everything immediately, but they should not be in the exact same place after months of training either.
Step 2: Evaluate Their Response to Coaching
Ask:
- How do they respond to correction?
- Do they take ownership?
- Do they get defensive?
- Do they change their behavior after feedback?
Everyone makes mistakes. The issue is not whether they mess up. The issue is what they do after the mistake is pointed out.
Step 3: Ask Whether Teammates Want to Work With Them
This is a big one.
Do teammates want to be scheduled with this person? Do people trust them? Do they make the day better, or do they make the day more difficult?
When hiring, one question worth asking is this:
If I called the last three people you worked with, what three words would they use to describe you? Would they want to work another shift with you?
If somebody says, “We worked great together and had a lot of fun,” that is a good sign. If they admit there was drama with former teammates, do not just move on. Dig into it.
Ask what happened. Ask how they handled it. Ask whether the same patterns could show up in your business.
Every job has conflict from time to time. But somebody who has drama everywhere they go may be the common denominator.
Step 4: Measure Core Value Fit
Ask:
- Do they live our core values?
- Are they making the company better?
- Do they make the people around them better?
- Would I trust them with customers, coworkers, and responsibility?
This is where you separate a worker from a future A player.
Step 5: Ask the Question That Clears Everything Up
At any point, ask yourself this:
Knowing everything I know today, would I enthusiastically hire this person again?
Not, “Could I replace them tomorrow?”
Not, “Would losing them make the schedule harder this week?”
Not, “Have I already put too much time into training them?”
Just this: knowing what you know now, would you hire them again?
If the answer is no, you have your answer.
Do Not Let a Hiring Mistake Become a Six Month Management Mistake
Two things often keep business owners from moving quickly when they know somebody is not right for the company.
The Sunk Cost Problem
You think about all the time and money already invested:
- You recruited them.
- You hired them.
- You trained them.
- You put them on the schedule.
- You spent time coaching them.
Starting over sounds terrible. And it is not fun. But keeping them another three months does not recover the investment. It only adds to the sunk cost.
Do not turn a hiring mistake into a six month management mistake.
The Ego Problem
Sometimes the real issue is ego.
You personally hired this person. You defended the decision. Maybe you told your managers that this was the right hire. Now, letting them go feels like admitting you were wrong.
But it is okay to be wrong.
In fact, if you cannot admit when you are wrong as the leader, why would anybody else in the company admit when they are wrong?
Leadership starts with accountability. Sometimes you are not giving the employee more time because they deserve more time. You are giving yourself more time before you have to admit the hire did not work.
Make the call when it needs to be made.
Do Not Confuse the Wrong Person With a Staffing Problem
There are two completely separate questions:
- Is this the right person for the company?
- Do I have somebody ready to replace them?
One question should not overrule the other.
Yes, being short staffed is hard. Yes, schedules need to be filled. Yes, sometimes you need a warm body in a spot.
But keeping the wrong person because you need coverage can cost you much more in the long run.
There may be times when you keep somebody for an extra day to help your scheduler make it through a difficult situation. But do not let that become weeks and months of tolerating somebody who is harming the business.
If you truly need temporary coverage, use a temp. Find another temporary solution. Do what you need to do without allowing the wrong hire to spread their negativity through the company.
Remove the Threat Before It Spreads
Think about a computer virus. Once you find the initial threat and remove it from the system, the rest of the system can start recovering.
Your business can work the same way.
A negative, dramatic, non-core-value-fit employee can act like a virus in your company. They affect morale. They create conflict. They damage trust. They hurt customer service. They make good people question whether they want to stay.
Once you identify that threat and remove it, the business often improves faster than you expect.
You can see:
- Better customer retention
- Higher quality work
- Improved employee morale
- Stronger trust in leadership
- A healthier overall culture
The problem does not always disappear instantly, but removing the source gives the rest of the team room to breathe and get back to doing good work.
What You Should Know by Day 90
You do not need an A player by day 90.
You need to know whether you are looking at one in the making.
Judge job mastery with patience. Some people learn faster than others. Give the right people the time and training they need to become great.
But do not be patient with bad character, repeated excuses, defensiveness, drama, gossip, or a refusal to live your company values.
By day 90, you should have a clear read on whether someone is:
- Growing
- Taking ownership
- Responding to coaching
- Working hard
- Helping the team
- Living your core values
- Making the company better
If they are, keep investing in them. They may become one of the people who helps build your business for years.
If they are not, believe what they are showing you.
Make the Decision
Take a look around your business right now.
Ask yourself: who am I allowing to stay? Which C players are currently in my company? If I were interviewing them again today, knowing everything I know now, would I enthusiastically hire them?
If the answer is no, do not let pride, sunk costs, or a difficult schedule keep you from making the right move.
Cut bait and run.
Protect your A players. Protect your culture. Build a company where excellence is expected because it is what you tolerate.
Be happy, be grateful, find opportunities to help somebody else, and go make the decisions your business needs.