There is just one good way to fire employees for cause. I will leave to another time the discussion of documentation and justification for terminations – here I will focus on the process once a decision has been made to terminate.
If you are the terminator, embrace the reality that you are about to do something that is very likely to cause another human being to hate you. Even in the most justified circumstance . . . YOU are taking away someone’s job; YOU are causing someone’s hardship; YOU are taking food from the someone’s kids’ mouths. To the fired employee YOU ARE EVIL – don’t try to fight it. You should focus on the two goals of a termination meeting:
1) Communicate the message and
2) Get out safely.
That’s it – there is nothing to be gained by further conversation. You are the evil person ending the employment relationship with the employee – just do it.
Start the meeting with the following words:
“We have discussed your performance in the past. Speaking for the Company, we are still not satisfied – we are terminating your employment effective immediately.”
With the exception of very tactical questions (“when will I get my last paycheck”, “will I get COBRA paperwork”, etc.), your answer to any other inquiry should be:
“THE DECISION HAS BEEN MADE.”
When the employee says: “You have got to be kidding – my performance hasn’t been that bad. You said I was improving. How could you do this to me . . . .”
Once they stop talking, say:“THE DECISION HAS BEEN MADE.”
When the employee says: “But what about all the other people around here that don’t get their job done. Mary does nothing – Jim is always late, and I’ll make a bet you don’t know what everyone says about you when you are out . . . .”
Once they stop talking, say:“THE DECISION HAS BEEN MADE.”
In my experience, the employee gets frustrated, but gets the message and leaves. I have never had anything close to a violent confrontation in the hundreds of termination meetings that I have either conducted or coached. Let me suggest a few other tricks of the trade to keep you safe:
1. There is no law against firing people over the phone: I do not recommend that you make this a common practice, but one should really consider whether or not there is any benefit to calling an employee to work simply to fire them. Remember: to the employee being fired you are evil anyway. You are not about to get a “thank you” card because you had the courtesy to do the deed in person. If you call the employee at home and they are concerned enough to ask, “Am I getting fired?”, professionally follow the standard protocol.
Note: If your SOP is to have the police “nearby” for potentially dangerous situations, please rethink that strategy. I had an alleged workplace safety expert tell me that the reason I should do termination in person was so I could assess the ongoing risk post-termination. My response was simple and to the point: “Being that I have not been trained by the FBI to assess potential violence, my assessment is going to be based on whether or not the employee pulls a gun or makes a direct threat. I am doing this over the phone.”
2. Don’t telegraph the meeting: If you are going to terminate someone in person for cause, do not set up the meeting in such a way that the employee will figure it out. You are better off showing up unannounced rather than setting up a secret-topic meeting. The person may be shocked, but you will be safe. (Layoffs will be discussed in another post.)
3. Have someone nearby for safety: Have someone either in the room or within yelling distance. However, never allow a subordinate to the terminated employee to be in the room when the employee gets fired – shame does not promote safety.
4. Make the termination meeting your last contact with the employee: If you can pass off the employee to another Manager to “handle the details”, that will help calm the situation. Remember – you will be the primary focus of the employee’s hostility. It is safer if you are not standing around for 15 minutes while the employee cleans out their desk. Have a phone number for them to call already written on a piece of paper – it can be the corporate office or benefits – give the employee an outlet to vent other than at you and get out of the line of fire.
5. Collect only that which makes a difference: Employers tend to want to collect everything from a name badge to a locker key. Decide what is critically important and/or costly don’t worry about the rest. (True story: I addressed a situation where a Manager was insisting that the employee bring back a two dollar box cutter before releasing the employee’s last paycheck. Wage and hour issues aside, I am not asking someone that I just fired to hand over a box cutter.)
6. Don’t ever say you’re sorry: First of all, you are not – if you were really sorry you wouldn’t be doing it. Second, the person you are firing really does not need YOUR sympathy. All you will do is prolong the meeting and give another opportunity for the person to get more upset.
7. Have an exit strategy: Can the employee leave the room and the building without incident or do we need to change the location? Does the employee have a way to get home or do we need to call a cab? Again, from a safety standpoint we do not want a wife calling her husband saying “can you come pick me up, they just fired me for no reason.”
One final note: If you train your managers on these techniques, be aware, you may have to alter the verbiage. I found myself about to terminate someone that I had trained and realized that saying “The Decision Has Been Made” might just seem downright insulting to someone who knew it was designed to end the meeting. I went with “At this point, there is nothing that can change the outcome” and it worked fairly well. Safety first!
———————————–
I will give credit where credit is due. Although I have personally conducted hundreds of termination meetings, some of the best advice I ever received was from a colleague of mine during a summer position with an investment bank in New York. Joe Burriel, an HR professional (consultant at times) passed along some valuable tidbits of information that I have included in this post. Even if I have some revisionist history, I give him credit for the inspiration of my method – and ironically, as I recall, the summer we worked in the same HR department, no one got fired for cause. We had one intern fail a drug screen minutes after the interview, but that topic is for another day . . . .