Firing Is Fiery!

For most human resources professionals, hiring a new candidate is a jubilant moment. However, needing to fire one of their existing employees is one situation they pray hard to avoid getting into. Unfortunately, the need to fire an employee for the health of the organization is inevitable at times. In such cases, HR professionals are not left with a choice. However, firing an employee does not always have to be a bad experience.

Terminating an employee’s services can sometimes be the best solution for an organization or the employee himself. Reasons for termination may include a lack of productivity, misconduct, a loss to the organization owing to the carelessness of the employee, and other issues. Human resources professionals faced with the situation of firing an employee need to tackle each case differently.

• If the employee has not been performing up to expectations, offer him training to upgrade his skills and increase his knowledge of his role and duties.
• If the employee is a misfit for his role in your organization, encourage him to look for a new job in an area he would be interested in.
• If the employee has grudges about his remuneration or position in the organization, make him realize your limitations in helping him while being careful not to hurt his ego or self-esteem.

If the situation does not improve even after your attempts to fix it, you will at least know that you tried to amicably end the relationship with your employee. Here are a few tips on how to progress with an employment termination meeting.

• Make sure you have all the documents with you regarding the employee’s previous performance, including performance reviews, performance warnings, and others, before you sit for the meeting. Additionally, decide on details like how much time the employee will be given to move out of the organization and what company belongings he should surrender before moving out.
• Come straight to the point about the reason for the meeting. Tell your employee about the job termination and the reason behind it in a polite and compassionate tone.
• Give the employee a fair chance to raise questions. In response, give details to justify the decision to terminate his employment.
• Judge the mood of the employee and, based on your instincts and the direction of your discussion with him, decide whether giving him suggestions or advice will help the matter. If he is in a receptive mood, build his self-esteem to help him get on with his next job search.
• Most termination meetings turn out to be unpleasant ones. If the employee gets agitated and creates a scene, do not lose your temper. It is natural for him to be upset, but as a responsible representative of your organization, your role is to keep everyone’s temper in check during the meeting and peacefully bring an end to the discussion.
• To avoid losing critical company data, ask your IT department to make a back-up of the employee’s work data before breaking the news to him.

Conclusion

Terminating an employee is always difficult both emotionally and practically, as a lot of investment typically has gone into training and building the skills of the employee. No matter how hard an HR professional tries, termination meetings usually end on a bitter note. However, one thing human resources professionals should keep in mind is that firing employees is a part of their jobs, and when they have to do it, they do it for the well-being of their organizations.

This article is sponsored by HRCrossing.

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