My recent posts covered how to make the best hiring decisions (Combatting Employee Turnover Before You Hire and The Importance of Background Checks). But what happens when you do all the right things, and you still wind up with a bad apple?
Allow me to bring you into a typical situation: An employee is not working at an expected level or is just not a good fit. You have several conversations with the employee, trying to make things work. It’s been a few months, and it’s not getting better — in fact, you think it’s getting worse. But you feel conflicted, because it’s a key position and the person is working on a project that needs to be completed. You have put the decision off for so long now, that the employee is dealing with a death in the family, a pregnancy, or a health issue. Now we really have a problem! To make it worse, through all the time, effort and energy involved in trying to coach and counsel this employee, no one bothered to document the conversations or even recap them in a simple e-mail to the employee. Now what?
Enter HR. Many of my clients ask when and how to fire someone — is it even ok? I like to get right to the core of the matter: What is the company’s intent? I want to know the outcome my client is looking for: Do you want to save the employee or let him/her go? Once I know the direction, I can help the client work toward getting there.
I am not a big fan of putting someone on a performance-improvement plan (PIP) just for documentation purposes. However, if you see potential value in the employee, and you think a well-written, milestone-driven, achievable PIP may work, then go for it. But if you are putting someone on a 90-day probation just so you can fire the guy when it’s over, why bother?
Other important factors to consider:
Is this a termination for cause?
Is the termination decision based on cultural fit?
Is the employee in a protected class: gender, ethnicity, age, disability, religion?
Has the employee brought any complaints to management? You don’t want a termination to turn into a retaliation claim, so think this one through.
Do you want to mitigate risk and offer severance?
When it comes to severance pay, there are no laws that mandate how much to give. Offer enough monetary “consideration” for the employee to sign away their right to file a claim or lawsuit. My basic rule of thumb for calculating severance is simple: exempt equals one month of salary for every year worked; for an hourly employee, two weeks for every year. Consideration can also be in the form of company-paid health benefits, stock, outplacement services, relocation expenses, etc.
If you opt for the severance route, please don’t use a template (new or old). I can’t tell you how many bad, outdated, inappropriate templates I have seen. An experienced HR consultant can help you. If there are special circumstances, nuances or a high-risk issue, HR will know when to pull in legal counsel. If you don’t have an employment attorney (not your corporate counsel), you should consider engaging one.
A few more words to wise: Keep it all business, and avoid the personal feelings that sneak in. I understand the desire to be nice when terminating someone. Many of my clients want to help ease the employee into unemployment by giving a longer period of notice, so the terminated employee can “work” and look for a job at the same time. While there are times when that is appropriate, don’t lose sight of how you got here in the first place. Also, keeping someone around who isn’t going to stick around is awkward; it can leave the rest of the team feeling uncomfortable, and in the end, you don’t get any “real” work from the exiting employee. You get short-timer’s disease and a disgruntled team.
Now the fun part: Who gets to deliver the message? Let HR handle it! Seriously, that’s what we are paid for. All terminations should be witnessed by another manager, preferably the employee’s supervisor or hiring manager. The message should be direct and to the point. Write up talking points and rehearse; ad libbing can get you into trouble. Nothing you can say or do will change the fact they lost their job and their livelihood. Remain professional, thank them for their service and wish them the very best in their future endeavors.
Don’t underestimate the true cost of a bad hire: Productivity goes down, morale is low, and the time involved in meetings, coaching and counseling probably is not worth it in the end. Minimize the negative impact on the company’s bottom line: Get rid of the bad apple before it starts to spoil the whole fruit bowl.
If you’d like to talk about how and when to terminate a poor performer, contact us.