Not everyone does it well, but for the sake of your company—and your employees—learning how to terminate someone’s employment is an important skill to learn. No, you just can’t turn to one of your charges and yell, “You’re fired!” That might sound good on TV, but it’s not the way to do things.
When terminating someone’s employment, you need to be mindful of a few things. First, if you’re firing someone for the wrong reason, you could be putting your company at risk. There’s also the matter of treating an employee with dignity and handling the situation so as to minimize the stress for both sides.
Last month, the Harvard Business Review published a Step-by-Step Guide to Firing Someone. It’s an easy read. If you’ve never given much thought to the process, now is a good time to start thinking about what you should do the next time, because there will be a next time.
