Three common problems when you terminate your employees
When you terminate someone it should be done as quickly and cleanly as possible. You want to be a human executioner, not a torturer who prolongs the employee's agony. That requires obsessive planning, scripted dialogue, and almost ritualized behavior. Offer sympathy, but not hope of a reconsideration. The termination act should be as swift and clean as a guillotine. Severance payments, however, are another story.
Most of the fears that employers have about terminating someone arise because they fail to realize that severance is, to use the great Florentine statesman's words, a benefit, not a severity. In most of the United States, a terminated employee does not have an automatic legal right to severance. It has, however, become an accepted practice in cases when an employee has been fired without cause. Your fears can be cured simply by making severance a process, rather than a one-time payment. Instead of handing a terminated employee a check and showing them the door, link the initial and continued payment of severance to the behavior you desire.
I'm afraid I'll break the law.
You're being entirely rational in having this fear. Because of the, I believe, justifiable proliferation of protective statutes, there has been a resulting increase in the number of claims of illegal terminations. Expertise is essential in terminating someone without being held legally liable. However, most of the expertise you need can be hired. What you need to learn is who is and isn't a "protected" minority. Terminations can be considered discriminatory if they were made on the basis of age, gender, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, national origin, or even marital status. If you plan to terminate anyone who might fall under one of these categories, then you need to speak with a termination expert¡ªeither a human resources consultant, an outplacement counselor, or an employment lawyer. The expert will then help you establish a foolproof termination process that should protect you from legal liability.
As long as you have followed the pattern laid out by your expert you should need to deal with any appeal, or threat, from the employee. However, if you're afraid of a nuisance lawsuit, you might consider treating the threat as just an effort to increase the severance package. In all honesty, that's how I advise using this leverage whenever I represent an employee who may have been unfairly terminated. Obviously, you should never retract the termination. But if it makes your life easier, increasing the severance might be justified in the circumstances.
They'll ask for more severance.
This is a cluster of problems, taking the shape of a single problem. Instead of looking at cash as the only element of a severance package, you can actually make the problem easier to solve by focusing on the various other items that could be offered. Continued health coverage can be discussed. Use of the office and its facilities as a job-hunting base can be debated. Ownership of office equipment¡ªlike a laptop or cell phone¡ªcan be negotiated. References can be made part of the package. The more issues brought into play the easier it will be to come up with a compromise solution.
Don't get angry at the request. Focus instead on the facts. You want the employee to leave quickly without damaging your business. The employee also wants to leave quickly, but with as much of a cushion against financial ruin as they can get. When push comes to shove it's really just a negotiation over what you're willing to "pay" for their speedy and cooperative departure.
It-helps if you have some expertise on the current state of the job market. That way you'll be able to differentiate between rational pleas for help and unjustified blackmail.
Since you aren't legally required to pay any severance, you can always resort to a take-it-or-leave-it position. However, I'd suggest you temper that somewhat by giving them two or three weeks to consider your take-it-or-leave-it offer, during which time they must continue to go about the basics of their job. In effect you're saying you'll give them another two or three weeks' pay in exchange for their doing some minimal work and then leaving with the original severance offer.
They'll sabotage my business (or) They'll go after my customers (or) They'll bad-mouth me.
The key information to absorb is that severance isn't an entitlement and need not be a one-time payment. Put together a severance package that is a process contingent on the behavior you desire. For instance, offer to pay the two months' severance out in weekly installments, as long as the employee refrains from disrupting your business or speaking with your customers. Or tie acceptance of the severance package with acceptance of an agreement not to unfairly compete.
After a termination there's no longer any trust between an employer or employee. Whatever agreements you have must be in writing.
There's no need for an appeal here. If the employee refuses to agree not to disrupt your business, or to refrain from speaking to your customers, simply take your severance offer off the table and show them the door.
tags: problems, employee
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