"You're Fired!" A Business Owner's Primer to Employee Termination

Firing an employee is never easy, but sometimes you have to do it in the best interests of your company.

Most companies will terminate immediately for things like coming to work impaired by drugs or alcohol, insubordination or rudeness to customers. Information companies like Solid Cactus take seriously any breaches of proprietary information and violations of client confidentiality. After the obvious, most companies have what is called a grievance procedure, a series of steps before termination.

Specifically, the circumstances under which people are fired tend to change whether your company employs people on an hourly scale or not. TheFerretStore.com, sister company of Solid Cactus, is a “pick and pack” warehouse setting. TheFerretStore.com employees are hourly workers who punch a clock. In a clocked environment, tardiness, absence and other attendance issues can occur. Meanwhile, Solid Cactus is an office with salaried workers and we are concerned with performance issues like lack of quality work. We do not hire people to fire them and we bet you don’t either. So Solid Cactus has a 5 step process to try to reverse bad work performance before it’s too late.

Five Steps to the End of the Plank

• Warning #1—verbal. This is where we verbally identify the problem with the employee and begin the process of documentation.
• Warning #2—written. This is the second step and the problem is identified in writing. The employee must sign off on the documentation showing that he/she received it and understands it.
• Warning #3—written. This is essentially the same as the second step. In many companies this is the point at which employees receive suspensions without pay. We don’t do it at Solid Cactus because our people are salaried.
• Warning #4—written. This is your last chance. With this final warning comes the wording “This is your last warning. If your work does not improve you will be terminated.”
• Step #5—you’re fired.

Many companies opt for a 3 step grievance procedure. At every stage though, try to determine: do your people have what they need (including training) to do their jobs? Firing an employee is never easy and always expensive. So do it carefully and do it thoughtfully.