Employee Terminations

There are three reasons why you should handle terminations in an informed and professional way:

1. The person being terminated deserves to be treated with respect and have their dignity preserved, regardless of the circumstances.  Also remember that you may bear some responsibility for the situation if you should not have hired the person in the first place (perhaps you ignored warning signs, or were desperate to fill the position and accepted less-than-ideal qualifications, or failed to do reference checks).
2. Many organizations face severe financial constraints as an ongoing reality.  They can ill afford to pay the financial penalty that often goes with handling a termination badly.  The financial cost can be twofold if the terminated employee takes legal action: increased severance payments imposed by the courts, and legal fees.  These problems can be avoided by being aware of and following a sound and legally defensible termination procedure.
3. Your remaining employees will be impacted by the termination - even if they welcome it - and will be watching and expecting you to handle it in a professional way.

The key to a "successful termination" begins with hiring, when you should clearly express your expectations, and continues throughout the employer/employee relationship.  Performance feedback while the individual is in your organization - formal and informal - also plays a critical role in a well-managed termination.  But the actual termination event is what stays in everyone's mind the longest time. 

Remember that a termination impacts everyone - even the termination of someone that is not liked will affect coworkers if it is not handled properly.

The best you can hope for when terminating someone is to have a chance meeting sometime in the future and hear them say, "You know... leaving the company was the best thing that ever happened to me."  The worst thing that can happen is a long drawn out - and costly - legal process involving lawyers and government agencies.

Don't forget: A former employee can be your best (or worst) marketing person in terms of promoting your organization in the community.


Points to Keep in Mind

The following points are critical at all stages of a person's employment - when you hire them, when you first identify that they have a performance problem, or when you are considering terminating them.  If you stick to them, you'll find the unwelcome process of dismissal much easier.

1. Review your organization's policies and your employment offer letters.  Make sure that there is nothing that specifies length of employment or indicates employment lasts "as long as performance is satisfactory" or something similar.
2. If you have organizational and employee policies in writing, follow them.  If you find that you are always making exceptions to the rules, then change the rules.  Clearly they are no longer acting as useful guidelines.
3. Establish reasonable standards of conduct and give them to your employees in writing.  They should be written in simple, straightforward language.  You should also have your employees sign an acknowledgment that they are aware of and have read your organization policies and standards of conduct, that they agree to follow the rules you have established, and that failure to observe those rules could eventually lead to termination.
4. As soon as a performance problem crops up, start documenting your communications to your employee.  Generally, it is best to follow a progressive communication process: clear verbal feedback, written warning that unless there is an improvement in performance their job is in danger, and if necessary followed by termination. 
5. Anytime you are notifying an employee that their job is in danger, it should be in writing.  It is a good idea to have another person present in these types of performance counseling sessions, if at all possible.
6. Ideally you should be providing your staff with periodic performance reviews, both formal and informal, and they should obviously be fair and honest.  Make sure your staff are recognized when they are doing well, where improvement or development is needed, and what the outcome will be if performance doesn't improve.
7. Know the steps you need to follow in the termination process and plan it ahead.
8. Treat the individual with respect and preserve their dignity during the whole process.
9. Keep all discussions confidential.
10. Document the termination - you may need to refer to these notes if the individual takes legal action.  You should communicate the facts consistently and honestly when you are asked.