Employee Terminations Require Preparation
Sooner or later, every supervisor or manager is involved in a decision to separate the employment of a subordinate. The separation may be in the form of a layoff due to slow business conditions, a reorganization or merger causing job loss, or a firing due to poor performance. Separating an individual's employment is not an easy task, but sometimes it is a necessary decision that is in the best interest of the individual and the organization.
However, when a firing is not properly handled, it is not only traumatic for the individuals involved, it can also cause a costly legal liability for the organization. Unfortunately, many firings seem to be a "knee-jerk" reaction to some incident that may or may not be justified. When the manager properly prepares for a separation decision, he or she can help to reduce the stress of the action and minimize the likelihood of a legal claim by the fired employee.
Fired employees are increasingly taking their former employers to court seeking back pay and damages because the firing was poorly handled or discriminatory. Often, employees are winning their case and receiving court ordered payments of five or six figures. For this reason, the knee-jerk firing decision can be very costly to the employer. Consider these examples: A communications company needed to reduce its sales costs and planned to layoff a Hispanic worker because he spoke with an accent and was hard to understand. Investigation revealed, however, the worker had the best sales record in the office.
Another employer planned to fire a sales coordinator for excessive absences and poor performance. Upon taking a closer look, it was noted that the absences were within the limits of the firm's attendance policy and the worker had submitted a list of suggested job procedure improvements to which the manager had failed to respond.
So many times, managers cope with a problem employee, but fail to really address the problem until some minor incident prompts a "knee-jerk" firing reaction. In fairness to the employee, and to minimize the likelihood that a firing decision will be challenged in court, the manager needs to do some preparation. Here are some suggestions:
• Define performance goals or work requirements. Make sure that the employee clearly understands job requirements.
• Take care to document an employee's performance problems. A warning notice or letter explaining performance deficiencies may lead to improved performance. However, if the employee's work fails to improve, the letter documents your efforts to correct the problem.
• If performance problems persist, issue a final warning to the employee. If the employee's misconduct or poor performance continues after the final warning, you have a clear basis to terminate employment.
• Check your firm's employee handbook or personnel policy manual. Take care not to fire an employee in a manner which disregards a published policy.
• Do not fire an employee for a legally protected activity. Your employees have a legal right to file a workers compensation claim, complain about safety conditions, or even to file a complaint with the government about wages, hours, discrimination or sexual harassment. If you fire an employee because of or subsequent to an exercise of rights allowed under law, you're likely to encounter greater legal difficulties.
• Avoid the tendency to make conditions so bad the employee will quit. Such action may be judged to be constructive discharge.
Careful handling of performance or misconduct situations may help to salvage a valuable employee. However, when the termination is necessary, proper preparation will help to reduce the stress, disruption and likelihood of costly legal claims.
William S. Hubbartt is president of Hubbartt & Associates, a St. Charles, IL based management consulting firm specializing in personnel policy development, employee compensation, training, and related advisory services. He is author of Personnel Policy Handbook - How to Develop a Manual That Works (McGraw - Hill, 1993)
