How To Terminate Employee Properly And With Protection

Terminate Employee And Manage Anger

From a Cornell University study, researchers got this result. Ex-workers bring lawsuits against former employers because of the way the employer terminated the employee.

Here’s what this means.

An employee becomes irate because her manager treated her poorly in the firing meeting. She feels you didn’t recognize her efforts on the company’s behalf, years of service, sacrifices for the business etcetera.

Due to her feeling that her manager treated her poorly, she looks for ways to get revenge. Typically, she will call her greedy lawyer who loves to sue unsuspecting honest business people, and you as the employer will find yourself in court facing a half-million dollar lawsuit. (The exact figure is $536,937 per Jury Verdict Research. This is the average jury award for wrongful dismissal over the past 6 years.)

Therefore, your job is to minimize the worker’s anger during the termination and stop it from happening at all if possible. You should consider:

• How you tell the worker about her termination

• How you present the termination reason and severance benefits during the separation meeting

• How the worker leaves the premises for the last time

• How you help her through the aftermath of the separation.

As you think through each of these, you should think about these 5 ways to cut worker frustration, disappointment and anger...

First, don't shock the worker with the firing; she should have some idea it’s coming.

Second, you should terminate sympathetically during the firing meeting. Above all, you don't want to humiliate her by saying "You're fired" in front of coworkers. You’re not Donald Trump!

Third, don't treat her like a felon after you have terminated her. Don't usher her out of the building between two security guards unless you really believe she could commit a crime on the way out the door..

Fourth, you should give her a reasonable separation package. You don't want her to feel the only way she can recover financially is through taking you to court.

Fifth, you never want to fire without preparing. You should only fire once you have completed your termination checklist. (To get more details, I refer you to Chapter 8 in the Employee Termination Guidebook where you get a firing procedure that lays out all the steps.)

These 5 ways will significantly cut a fired workers anger and therefore your chance of her suing you. This advice could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars for every termination you perform. To get more details on how to fire properly and reduce your chance of a wrongful dismissal suit, click terminate employee guidebook.

Website Terms and Privacy Policy

Resources