The right way to fire an employee
Managing a company can be a challenging task. Superior needs to perform various managerial roles for their subordinates and one of the most difficult challenges for a superior is to fire his/her employee. Almost every boss considers the termination of the employee as the most difficult part of their job. There might be various reasons for firing employees from their work, but action needs to be taken to meet organizational objectives without interruption. If you want to learn how to fire a difficult employee, below are some appropriate ways.
- Record the Performance
Recording the task performed by your employees is essential. Superior needs to collect information related to the work of an employee and monitor their work. Summarize the improvements that are required to secure their job, by giving the deadlines to implement. Set a target and do not expect all the problems to be solved at the same time. Your employees are humans, and they need time to improve too. With your supervision and guidance, they should be able to perform better. Giving them proper training and facilities can enhance their contribution to the bottom line.
Superior should lead the team and always focus on the goal. If the return is not harmonizing with the expectation, the right decision is termination. If the performance of the employee is way below than expected even after all your training and monitoring, you can simply show them the result of their performance and state that they are not suitable for the job.
- Take a Quick Action
Your question on how to fire a difficult employee does not require much time to be answered. Taking swift action against unethical employee behavior is the key. Superior needs to respond to a problem and solve it as quickly as possible. Firstly, you need to communicate about the issues that have been noticed with the employee. Then, ask the employee if they need help or guidance to visualize their perspectives and feedback. After that, make sure you record the conclusion of the conversation in written form and have their signature. If the performance of the employee does not improve after the meeting, then show the paper of the previous meeting and declare that they are fired.
- Become Decent
Firing an employee is a difficult job. While taking this action, the superior should appreciate the effort of the employee and terminate them without having any bad blood. Make sure you give employees your reason to fire them. Do not make the conversation too lengthy and make it clear that this is your final decision. Answer the question raised by the employee tactfully and do not lead the conversation to a discussion. Be prepared to handle the anger of the employee in a decent way and choose your words cautiously.
- Make a Proper Plan
Before conducting the meeting with an employee make a plan about where you the meeting to go. Select the firing words and study about faults in employee jobs. Prepare the witness and records of their performance. Prepare all the paperwork before termination and discuss the situation with the team. Become calm with the employee.
- Involve other Managers
How to fire a difficult employee? Involve other people! While firing an employee, make sure you take the help of other managers in the meeting. This makes your task much more comfortable as you can tackle the problems that may arise in the conversation with the employee and handle the situation efficiently.
- Avoid Argument
After termination, most of the people are quiet, but some argue and get mad. Difficult employees can be a headache to deal with. Make sure that you do not let the conversation leads to an argument. For handling difficult employees, you must maintain your composure and talk to them through evidence and witnesses. Become calm and select the words more carefully. Do not disturb the mentality of the employee as they might become emotional or angry. Speak carefully as the employee can feel worse or open legal issues if their termination is not justified.
- Stay Professional
It is always a good idea to stay professional with your employees. You can build a good relationship with your employees without being their friends. If you get too personal with them, it will be difficult for you to characterize accountability and responsibility in your work. If you are too friendly with your employee, it can be challenging for you to give them a command, let alone fire them. Even if you are friends with your employee, their termination has to be done professionally.
- Have a safe side
While terminating an employee, make sure you have a solid document of evidence and witness as protecting yourself legally is very important. Have a summary of the meeting and make it signed by the employees. Also, make sure that after an employee is fired, he cannot access the information system of the organization. Protecting your financial and legal interests is critical. It is ideal if you inform your IT team to shut down the terminated employee’s accounts and access to company property immediately after termination or while the meeting is happening. To protect company data, it is better if you forward the fired employee’s email to another employee.
- Offer to Help
In many cases, the employee that underwent termination is not a bad person, he/she is just not suitable for the job. You may feel like the employee genuinely made an effort but were simply out of luck. If so, you can maintain a good relationship with them by offering to give them recommendation regarding their leadership, attitude, teamwork, their reliability, whatever parts of the jobs they were good at. In the end, you can wish them luck and thank them for their hard work.
