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Career Management: Fire the Non-Performer-Now!
from: John GrothCareer Advice: How to Properly Fire Someone!
Not every hire becomes a superstar. Employee performance changes over time. An employee gets a new supervisor and there is a personality clash. Company policy changes or older policies are now enforced. All can lead someone getting fired.
As a manager in the course of your career, there will be a time when you have to recommend firing someone, or you personally have to make it happen. Here’s some career advice that will give you some help in properly handling the difficult task.
Firing someone is never easy. But if events leading up to the firings are followed fairly, the event will not be a total surprise to the employee. Although there are costs involved, both to the employee and employer, the company’s ultimate goals are to properly manage the organization so it can profitably provide goods or services to their customers.
Some experts say firings ought to be avoided if at all possible. In a perfect world this may be true but it is unrealistic to have any size organization in which no one is ever fired. If no one is ever fired, upon investigation usually management is found playing favorites or the performance standards are so low that everyone can easily meet performance targets.
Firing someone is basically for two broad reasons. One, they violate company policy, for example: stealing, fighting, lying on company documents, lying about absences, tardiness or just plain excessive absences, insubordination, violating safety rules, and drinking or drug issues. Policy violations of this type, if proven, the employee is then promptly brought in and fired. An exception would be on tardiness and excessive absences where there normally is a several step warning process.
All this is done with fairness and consistency. If there is an investigation, it is through and the employee is normally given an opportunity to present their side of situation. Many times the employee is suspended pending a final decision. Once the decision is made the meeting with the employee is brief, with a witness present, the employee is told the reason for the termination and nothing more. They are then escorted from the property.
The second reason for firing someone is a bit more complicated. It is for lack of performance. Again you must be fair and consistent. As a manager you must communicated a clear picture to every employee what performance is expected and how it is to be measured. So instead of waiting for an annual performance review the review process is ongoing.
As a manager you will then have a meeting with the underperforming employee to identify any problems and get them corrected. If this solves the problem, fine, if not a documented action plan on agreed upon performance improvements must be developed.
If over the agreed upon time the employee’s performance do not meet the agreed upon goals, and there are no acceptable reasons for the failure, firing may be the only option. One possibility to be explored is to move the employee to another position where their deficiencies would not detract from their overall job performance.
Absent a transfer to another position, the course of action is to fire the employee. To do otherwise is to lose credibility as a manager and do considerable damage to the organization.
As a manager deliver the message of the firing in a face-to-face meeting. Have one witness present. Outline the performance review process and stick to the facts. Do not bring anything into the meeting that the employee might construe they are being treated unfairly.
For example, in one situation the manger spent a great deal of time lauding the employee about past superior performance. The mixed message resulted in unnecessary litigation which the company won but at a huge cost in money and time.
If the employee has any accrued benefits the information should be completed before the meeting.
Immediately begin processing the documents necessary to take the employee off the payroll and benefit plans. Keep the meeting business like and if the counseling leading up to the firing was conducted in a fair and consistent manner the firing should not be a big surprise to the employee.
If appropriate, you should briefly and factually notify the other employees in the department of the termination.
The termination should be made promptly after the decision is made. Any delay will lend credence to the argument that the decision was not final and important to the organization’s operations.
During the course of your career you will have a number of occasions to terminate employees, although never welcomed, if conducted fairly and consistent throughout the organization it can have lasting positive effects.
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