First Time Firing An Employee

[Tennesseer]

Keep  the reason why a bit on the vague side in the termination letter.  Just a broad reason.   Don't get into the minute particulars.  I imagine your HR rep/department has drawn up the letter for you. 


Make sure everything has been documented including your one-on-one meetings with her and the context of your discussions.   Print out all your email correspondence with the employee as it pertains to her performance; complimentary  and non-complimentary. 


Give her a minute or two to defend herself.  Take notes during her replies-or recap termination meeting. 


Save everything;  she will propably file a wrongful termination charge with the unemployment office and  the EEOC.

[NoNamePerson]

Given today's climate in the work place are you prepared to escort her out the door immediately? Just a thought.

[Deleted]

Make clear the expectation when they are to leave the building and have security outside the door.

My last termination security didn’t show for the exit interview and the employee took off and roamed the building for an hour saying goodbyes and the whole security team had to drop everything and look for them.

I have been through several of these and you never know how this is gonna impact someone. Have had people you expect to raise holy hell leave silently and people you think aren’t gonna raise a stink completely lose their shit.

[Tennesseer]

Jan 31, 2020 9:56:57 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

Given today's climate in the work place are you prepared to escort her out the door immediately? Just a thought.

Good advice.

If any of her co-workers are around who she did not get along with, and if their work areas are within the terminated employee's work area, have them leave the area once she leaves the meeting with Ryan and HR. The termed employee will want to clean out her desk and you don't want her chewing out the other employees while doing so.

Maybe have someone clean out her desk/work area while she is in the meeting with Ryan and HR?

[Miss Tequila]

I just had to terminate someone, yesterday.  it sucks.  The kid was extremely nice and everyone genuinely liked him.  He was just dumb as a box of rocks!  He was a Temple Grad so I thought he would be awesome...now I'm questioning what kind of program Temple has!


I did have HR sit in with me just to explain COBRA and what we were offering in terms of severance.  I kept my part very short and something to the effect of "given the poor performance already addressed with you over the last month with little to know improvement, your employment with XYZ is terminated immediately.".   He almost started crying, which made it even tougher.  I did escort him to his desk to get his laptop and allowed him a few minutes to gather his belongings and then wished him well.


Good luck!  I've had to terminate many people over the years and it never gets easier.  I think if it ever does get easy that would be my sign to leave the corporate environment.  These are lives we are impacting and I take that seriously.  But, I also do what is best for the company.


Edited:  I also did it at the end of the day when I knew his co-workers were not going to be around.  I asked him to meet me at the end of the day to go over somethings.  Deceptive but I didn't want him to have witnesses as I know it is tough enough.  

[thyme4change]

Jan 31, 2020 10:10:44 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Jan 31, 2020 10:03:27 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Good advice.

If any of her co-workers are around who she did not get along with, and if their work areas are within the terminated employee's work area, have them leave the area once she leaves the meeting with Ryan and HR. The termed employee will want to clean out her desk and you don't want her chewing out the other employees while doing so.

Maybe have someone clean out her desk/work area while she is in the meeting with Ryan and HR?

Yeah they are pretty good about that here. They intercept them first thing so they have all the must haves on them before settling into their desk. They basically keep them (with a security guard) right by the entrance and don’t allow them to go back to their desk. They pack everything and fedex it to them.

I had to FedEx a box to a terminated employee (I didn't term her, but I got tasked with cleaning her office.) There wasn't much in there that was personal. A mug, a picture. I sent the calendar the company had given us, even though it had the company logo on it. She had written some personal stuff on there, so i couldn't tell if it was important to her. Then there was a filing cabinet in the corner. It had one empty drawer, 2 that had old random work papers, but not very full, and the bottom drawer had a bunch of motivational tapes - Tony Robbins, how to succeed shit. I put it all in a box and sent it off. A month later I found out those belonged to the guy that had that office before her. (The papers were probably his too. She may have never even opened the drawers.) So, I felt pretty shitty. She gets the boot, and then gets a box with company logo'ed stuff and motivational tapes. So, she was probably pretty pissed. I still feel bad.

[Tennesseer]

Jan 31, 2020 13:38:18 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Jan 31, 2020 10:10:44 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Yeah they are pretty good about that here. They intercept them first thing so they have all the must haves on them before settling into their desk. They basically keep them (with a security guard) right by the entrance and don’t allow them to go back to their desk. They pack everything and fedex it to them.

I had to FedEx a box to a terminated employee (I didn't term her, but I got tasked with cleaning her office.) There wasn't much in there that was personal. A mug, a picture. I sent the calendar the company had given us, even though it had the company logo on it. She had written some personal stuff on there, so i couldn't tell if it was important to her. Then there was a filing cabinet in the corner. It had one empty drawer, 2 that had old random work papers, but not very full, and the bottom drawer had a bunch of motivational tapes - Tony Robbins, how to succeed shit. I put it all in a box and sent it off. A month later I found out those belonged to the guy that had that office before her. (The papers were probably his too. She may have never even opened the drawers.) So, I felt pretty shitty. She gets the boot, and then gets a box with company logo'ed stuff and motivational tapes. So, she was probably pretty pissed. I still feel bad.

Don't feel bad.

You had no idea what was hers or the guy's in the same office before her. And the termed employee may or may not know who sent her the stuff in her office. And if she does, so what.

[Tennesseer]

Jan 31, 2020 20:16:01 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Jan 31, 2020 12:37:26 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

I just had to terminate someone, yesterday.  it sucks.  The kid was extremely nice and everyone genuinely liked him.  He was just dumb as a box of rocks!  He was a Temple Grad so I thought he would be awesome...now I'm questioning what kind of program Temple has!


I did have HR sit in with me just to explain COBRA and what we were offering in terms of severance.  I kept my part very short and something to the effect of "given the poor performance already addressed with you over the last month with little to know improvement, your employment with XYZ is terminated immediately.".   He almost started crying, which made it even tougher.  I did escort him to his desk to get his laptop and allowed him a few minutes to gather his belongings and then wished him well.


Good luck!  I've had to terminate many people over the years and it never gets easier.  I think if it ever does get easy that would be my sign to leave the corporate environment.  These are lives we are impacting and I take that seriously.  But, I also do what is best for the company.


Edited:  I also did it at the end of the day when I knew his co-workers were not going to be around.  I asked him to meet me at the end of the day to go over somethings.  Deceptive but I didn't want him to have witnesses as I know it is tough enough.  

WE had considered doing it at the end of the day, but we thought it might be more awkward.  We'd have to call her downstairs close to the door, but that alone would set off alarm bells.  Then we'd have to get her stuff upstairs and then deliver it down to her.  She kind of seems like the type of person that would overreact and say that she doesn't want anyone touching her personal items.  

This was a tricky one because it wasn't all about performance.  It more had to do with time management skills and who she interacted with people.  I met with her on numerous occasions and I don't think she really "got" what I was saying.

I'm 100% confident that it's going to be a complete and total shock, even though it shouldn't be (she's been on a plan from 6 months ago).  The only question is will she be in such shock that she won't say anything or will she just lose it.  I've seen both sides of her, but am guessing that she'll probably be on the quiet side.  

I wonder if I should even bother empathizing with her (thanks for your hard work, sorry it didn't work out, etc) or just deliver the news matter of factly and end the conversation so HR can take over.  She probably knows it won't be sincere since she has told me before that she doesn't think I ever thought she would work out.  I wouldn't go that far, but I saw early on that these ingrained characteristics were not going to be a good fit with the culture.  

No compliments such as "Thank you for your hard work." She will probably use what you state when you terminate her when she applies for unemployment or an EEOC complaint.

[Miss Tequila]

Jan 31, 2020 20:16:01 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Jan 31, 2020 12:37:26 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

I just had to terminate someone, yesterday.  it sucks.  The kid was extremely nice and everyone genuinely liked him.  He was just dumb as a box of rocks!  He was a Temple Grad so I thought he would be awesome...now I'm questioning what kind of program Temple has!


I did have HR sit in with me just to explain COBRA and what we were offering in terms of severance.  I kept my part very short and something to the effect of "given the poor performance already addressed with you over the last month with little to know improvement, your employment with XYZ is terminated immediately.".   He almost started crying, which made it even tougher.  I did escort him to his desk to get his laptop and allowed him a few minutes to gather his belongings and then wished him well.


Good luck!  I've had to terminate many people over the years and it never gets easier.  I think if it ever does get easy that would be my sign to leave the corporate environment.  These are lives we are impacting and I take that seriously.  But, I also do what is best for the company.


Edited:  I also did it at the end of the day when I knew his co-workers were not going to be around.  I asked him to meet me at the end of the day to go over somethings.  Deceptive but I didn't want him to have witnesses as I know it is tough enough.  

WE had considered doing it at the end of the day, but we thought it might be more awkward.  We'd have to call her downstairs close to the door, but that alone would set off alarm bells.  Then we'd have to get her stuff upstairs and then deliver it down to her.  She kind of seems like the type of person that would overreact and say that she doesn't want anyone touching her personal items.  

This was a tricky one because it wasn't all about performance.  It more had to do with time management skills and who she interacted with people.  I met with her on numerous occasions and I don't think she really "got" what I was saying.

I'm 100% confident that it's going to be a complete and total shock, even though it shouldn't be (she's been on a plan from 6 months ago).  The only question is will she be in such shock that she won't say anything or will she just lose it.  I've seen both sides of her, but am guessing that she'll probably be on the quiet side.  

I wonder if I should even bother empathizing with her (thanks for your hard work, sorry it didn't work out, etc) or just deliver the news matter of factly and end the conversation so HR can take over.  She probably knows it won't be sincere since she has told me before that she doesn't think I ever thought she would work out.  I wouldn't go that far, but I saw early on that these ingrained characteristics were not going to be a good fit with the culture.  

I did tell the kid that we all genuinely like him and wish him nothing but the best. I reiterated it was performance based and the job was a bad fit for his skill set. He isn’t much older than my daughter so I wanted to give him hope. He was shaking and about in Tera’s and I truly felt bad. Not because I thought it wasn’t warranted (he was truly horrible at every task given) but he is a young kid and he does have a future if he can find the right fit for him. He had the best personally so I truly think he needs to go into sales or something like that

I hope your termination went well!

[thyme4change]

Jan 31, 2020 20:06:05 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Jan 31, 2020 13:38:18 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

I had to FedEx a box to a terminated employee (I didn't term her, but I got tasked with cleaning her office.) There wasn't much in there that was personal. A mug, a picture. I sent the calendar the company had given us, even though it had the company logo on it. She had written some personal stuff on there, so i couldn't tell if it was important to her. Then there was a filing cabinet in the corner. It had one empty drawer, 2 that had old random work papers, but not very full, and the bottom drawer had a bunch of motivational tapes - Tony Robbins, how to succeed shit. I put it all in a box and sent it off. A month later I found out those belonged to the guy that had that office before her. (The papers were probably his too. She may have never even opened the drawers.) So, I felt pretty shitty. She gets the boot, and then gets a box with company logo'ed stuff and motivational tapes. So, she was probably pretty pissed. I still feel bad.

That's pretty funny, but hopefully she knew you were just cleaning out her desk and had no clue what belonged to who.  Either way, watch your back if you run into her on the streets.  

I have hoped that she knew those items were in her office, and that I didn't know. I'm still sure she was mad, because she was just angry with the whole situation, and probably had some reason to be. But she was a lovely woman, we had a pleasant relationship, and it has been 18 years, so I suspect she has seen the humor in it by now. At least I hope so!

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

How'd it go, Ryan?

[thyme4change]

Feb 4, 2020 0:33:09 GMT -5 Ryan said:

Feb 2, 2020 12:28:13 GMT -5 Knee Deep in Water Chloe said:

How'd it go, Ryan?

It was very awkward. She was silent for the entire ‘firing’ and then most of when HR started their spiel. The HR lady kept going through everything and then eventually her anger got the better of her and she started to vent. She basically complained about me saying I never gave her a chance. We ended it and sent her on her way.

This was very challenging because it wasn’t as cut and dry as ‘your performance sucks’. She just couldn’t manage on the ‘fringes’ of her emotions. She would resort to pretty rude behavior when she was upset, including arguments with co workers at times. She also had this thing where she thought people were out to get her. She would read emails completely different then I would interpret them and she would basically color in the details using her imagination. She was ok to work with as long as you basically did what she wanted so it created strained relationships with co-workers .

This one did kind of bother me. It was absolutely the right move but unsettling to know someone probably wouldn’t care if you drove off a cliff. I would’ve loved to have been very candid with her and just tell her all the reasons that led up to this. I mean, i met with her all the time but she never got it. I feel like she just needs someone to just set her straight, she prob wouldn’t listen though.

All in all, it went ok. The team is much stronger without her and there were no tears shed.

Really interesting, but she had much stronger relationships at the company with people she knew through email or phone. Nobody batted an eye when they found out she was gone, she didn’t talk to anyone. However she didn’t seem to be close with some coworkers that work elsewhere, which was interesting.

You found it unsettling that someone wouldn't care if you drove off a cliff, and then proceeded to describe that no one would seem to care if that person drove off a cliff. I guess we all have people in our lives that wouldn't care if we drove off a cliff, we just try not to think about it too much.