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The Dreaded Termination Talk: Helping Managers Get It Right

The Dreaded Termination Talk: Helping Managers Get It Right
by Tim Gould

The termination conversation: The most distasteful part of any manager’s job. Here are some guidelines on how to handle these confrontations in a humane, controlled and legally safe way.

Before a confrontation can happen, HR’s often faced with getting managers past their normal aversion to making the final termination decision.

A few of the more common rationalizations supervisors use to avoid dropping the axe – and why these avoidance tactics don’t make sense:

‘Maybe they’ll improve’

This is usually an idle hope – if they were going to improve, wouldn’t they have done so before things got this far? If the proper remediation steps have been taken and minimal standards still aren’t being met, it’s time to take action. Not doing so is a sure sign of a weak manager.

‘Better to have a warm body in the job than nobody at all’

All too often, the opposite is the case. Bad employees not only don’t only do their own jobs well, they drag down everybody else. If the function is critical to the company’s operation, the supervisor may have to delay the termination until a new employee can fill the key slot.

It’s also possible that the supervisor, with assistance from other workers in the department, may be able to carry the load until full staffing is achieved.

Finally, the situation could well be an opportunity to see if there’s a better, more economical way of performing the functions of the departing employee.

‘Other workers will think we’re cruel – they’ll hate me’

The “they’ll think I’m a bad person” sentiment is common, but it’s usually misplaced.

If an employee’s not performing up to standards, his or her co-workers know it.

They’re probably wondering why the person’s still around, and they’re likely resentful that they’re fulfilling their duties while the other worker isn’t.

The longer managers wait before proceeding to the actual termination, the more respect they can lose in the eyes of their other workers. Employees prefer to work for supervisors who enforce high standards evenly, uniformly and fairly.

Read full article on HR Morning.