How You Fire Is Informed by How You Hire

This week in HR, I turn to the matter of employee separation. Terminating employees is a natural and common function of business and it’s almost never easy. It’s so full of legal and emotional pitfalls that even the most experienced HR professional or manager should proceed with caution and, as ever, a plan.

Over the years, as a manager of project consultants in litigation support, I had the unsavory task of terminating project employees. Since our project consultants were rarely surprised when their project work concluded, it wasn’t as difficult for me as it is for those in more traditional fields. I never enjoyed it, nonetheless, and neither did the project employees.

There were times when we could have and did run into legal trouble with the terminated employees. In times where projects ended prematurely, due to changes in the litigation strategy, project employees might have seen their projects end in days, whereas they expected to be engaged for months. And that created unwanted hardship. We learned early on that our type of business required carefully crafted welcome 'letters of understanding,' alluding to the erratic nature of litigation and leaving no undue expectation of project duration. It was a critical function, ensuring none accepted our project work without clear terms and conditions.

What I’m trying to say is that the tone and nature of separating from your employees is best informed by how you hire. It's the same door or train station that brought them in that they'll have to leave through. Clearly articulate your at-will stance, job expectations, and wiggle-room parameters, provisos, and potentialities - these are as important to onboarding an employee as they are to waving goodbye.

What’s the purpose of having a strong handbook, with a clear At-Will Statement? So you are legally covered when someone demands a reason for their separation. There’s something more, though, about all these document provisions. It has to do with how it sets a tone of objectivity, good governance, and maturity (substitute the word professionality here, maybe) in your business. When employees are engaged in an organized, sophisticated way, they act more professional on the job, because they know they are employed by a serious entity. When managers are governed by clear, carefully conceived policies and procedures, their more human impulses are less likely to exhibit.

Here’s what: We are creating a Culture by our actions, by our decision-making processes, by our chain of command, and through statements of purpose and operating procedures. Culture is the ONLY thing that can make the taxing duty of separation less taxing. Here are some reasons why:

1. In a culture of high productivity, it is rarely a surprise to the underperforming employee when they are terminated for underperformance.
2. In a culture driven by principles and values, it shouldn’t be a surprise to the dissentious employee when they are sent packing.
3. In a culture where managers understand their role is to help enhance the employee experience so employees are more productive, it shouldn’t be a surprise when the resistant and disruptive employee is moved to another team or ultimately self-selects out to find a job with a company with higher social distance between managers and the line.
4. In a culture that is more direct or transparent, if you are, like me, forced to on and off board employees often, make separation a part of the ongoing conversation. The shock of termination is something that in some settings can be avoided with transparency about the latest forecast for the project to which employees are assigned.
5. Finally, in a culture where managers are governed by clear policies and procedures, as opposed to a renegade culture, there is less likely to be inappropriate conduct. And therefore inevitably fewer reasons for employee recourse after separation, AKA complaints of wrongful termination.

When employees are conditioned with bad culture to expect coddling – entitled to undeserved promotion, because incentive programs are not properly designed, or when employees are left to their own devices with little to no oversight, the employer will run into trouble. People want to be good employees, but they have to be told how to be. No employee wants a contentious separation, least of all the separated employee. In fact, it’s the most mortifying experience anyone would never ask for. Help your employees avoid it by creating a culture that is well defined with expectations, policies, processes, procedures, and with ample learning opportunities for all stakeholders from the top to the bottom.