Terminating an employee is never an easy task. When you terminate an employee, there is a loss of income and it can have a detrimental effect on their family. In spite of those facts, some individuals are truly bad employees and they need to be released from working for an organization.

When all attempts to salvage an employee have failed and termination is ls our only choice, there are points to keep in mind. When you terminate an employee, you must make sure that there are no loose ends so that the termination cannot come back to haunt you. In this world of hiring lawyers for everything, you do not want to leave any loose ends. All terminations need to be done under the guidance of the human resource department or administration so that all policies have been followed 100%. These are examples of things to do when terminating an employee.

EXPECTATIONS

What expectations where in place when the employee was first hired and did you clearly explain those expectations with the employee? This means that the details of the job description, and expected performance and a copy of the policies and procedures pertinent to their job were discussed. All of this should have been put in writing as evidence that these facts ere shared with the employee.

JOB PERFORMANCE

Job performance needs to be monitored and any issues need to be documented in the employee's record. If you have had conversations with the employee about their job performance, there needs to be evidence that discussions have taken place. if you placed a employee on a performance improvement plan, a copy with all the expected performance improvements should be clearly spelled out with deadlines set for improvement. A job performance improvement plan needs to be signed by the manager and the employee and a copy shared with the human resource department. Did you have frequent conversations with the employee so that you can show continued efforts to improve their performance? Employees can claim there were unfairly fired if you failed to follow through with any of these elements.

COACHING OR EDUCATION

Did you offer any education or mentoring to help the employee? If an employee violated policies were disciplines done in a timely manner?  If policies were violated, was the discipline process followed as per policy of the organization. Did the employee receive clear information on the possibility of termination if they continued to violate policy? All of this should be put in writing and shared with the employee so that there is a record of all conversations with the employee.