“I could have another you in a minute, and in fact, he’ll be here in a minute. . .”
Okay, enough proving I’m hip. Today’s post is about firing. It must suck. I have actually only had to do it
one time. But I’ve seen enough clients walk through it to know that it ain’t easy. Saying “You are of essentially no value to this company” is not easy. Yup, there are some who will argue with that statement, but the truth is, whether it’s budget cuts, poor performance, attitude or merger (there are more, but I’ll stop there for the sake of brevity), by firing you are saying there is something that is OF MORE VALUE to the company than this employee.
Tough stuff, and (my new fave saying) even the dullest crayon in the box (with the best severance package) can feel the sting of that unsaid reverse value proposition.
Since most businesses are getting more and more segmented, while simultaneously offering more services (and less service?), should we not explore the ones we’re letting go? Are there options we can steer them to?
I realized a little something about writing on this and my own blog today. Who am I writing for? For HR pros? Maybe. For recruiters and staffing experts? Sure. But odds are you’re looking at this through the lens of a small business:
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Ninety-eight percent of all companies have less than 100 employees, 89% have less than 20, and the average American business has 10 to 12 employees.
So, who am I talking to? Maybe the business owner that needs to find his fifth employee? Maybe someone with no access to a recruiter or HR person they can ask? Who outlines their employee handbook? Where do they find a good disciplinary action system? How do they structure bonuses to motivate a salesforce?
Scary fact: Here.
Okay, well not here, but Google or Yahoo or Mahalo or whatever. And for them, they need to know how to recruit, hire, retain, compensate, fire and network.
So back on the rabbit trail: Firing someone requires serious thought, a written out plan and decisive action. Do it right.
That is why those companies hire someone like me! I can help them do all those things… Lifecycle of an Employee.
Maren: This has to be one of the most difficult and stressful tasks that managers ever deal with. It does suck. Over the years I found that it’s usually much easier if there is a documented plan with multiple “employee interventions” to coach them on the areas of improvement they need to work on. If there is no improvement…you must take action. By the time the termination takes place – it is usually not a surprise to the employee …but it still sucks. I have always tried to make sure that the termination, while final, gives the employee some feedback that will help them in their next assignment. I also believe you must do this awful task with some dignity – it’s just the right thing to do. To that point, I always scheduled time to meet with the employee at the end of the day after the crowd left the building to avoid embarrassment and to make the desk-cleaning part of the termination more private. Finally – I always had someone with me as a witness just in case issues came up or emotions created an ugly scene – but fortunately that never happened. Tough task – but one that is necessary. It is what it is.
two things struck me as i read your post-
1) calling it firing? people may view this as semantics, but i cannot call it “firing.” it’s a termination, a separation, i’m letting someone go. it doesn’t have to be a cruel, cruel act. sure you’re essentially telling someone they do not provide value… but in this litigious society, i’m pretty sure before most get “fired,” strides have been made to see where they can provide value elsewhere in the organization and you’ve given things a fair shot. if not that, you’re handing over a healthy severance package to keep them quiet.
2) disciplinary action – even calling it “disciplinary” action freaks me out. it’s so punitive. i really believe HR people come from two schools – those who do “disciplinary action” and those who do “performance improvement.” the purpose of “disciplinary action” shouldn’t be to scold, it isn’t to reprimand – it’s to help one improve one’s performance or behavior. let’s stop calling it discipline folks… please?
It’s quite unfortunate, but there are a lot of organizations today that are having to let great people (“talent”) go because of a myriad of reasons. As of 9/5/08, the U.S. Economy has lost 605,000 jobs. Were all those people “fired”? When that same company doesn’t create new jobs to replace their lost ones, were they really saying “there is something that is OF MORE VALUE to the company than this employee?”
Pointing back to JPankow’s post on WaMU, I imagine there were quite a bit of great people who had the axe fall – not because they weren’t great, but because you can’t run a business model on giving people mortgages on stated incomes. And guess what? Other employers and recruiters may brand them with “being fired”, although it was a mass separation or reconsolidation/reorganization. The stigma they will carry as “being fired” will not only affect them professionally, but personally as well.
The mantra/myth that companies “always find a way to keep their best people” is utter and complete bunk – sometimes companies can’t afford to keep their best, such as is what Circuit City did a few years ago when they fired their top commission-based sales reps and hired hourly salespeople.
I personally went through a downsizing with my first job after leaving the USMC in early-mid 2002, smack in the middle of the previous recession. There were about 5k of us that were downsized, and because I didn’t accept an offer in Kenosha, WI from Atlanta, GA, my severance was cut in half. There was super talent that was “let go” . . . but was it fair for that talent to now battle their newfound stigma of ‘not being retained’? This is all definitely food for thought given our growing number of job losses and economic troubles.
I’d prefer to say that the 605,000 job losses in this economy (2008) had little to nothing to do with saying “there is something that is OF MORE VALUE to the company.” It’s a lot bigger than that and there are there are large scale macroeconomic cycles at play – if only the world was so simple that we could upsize and downsize based on individual employee performance alone . . .
Yes it does suck, concensus reached. To your point Jessica, I’d rather be fired than terminated any day. This post is explicitly about whether or not the person is making the grade, even post “performance initiative”. And although I got hosed when saying that this latest economic mess might actually produce something of some good, I will say something that is similarly unpopular. Discipline is a GOOD thing. See definition below:
“In its most general sense, discipline refers to systematic instruction given to a disciple. This sense also preserves the origin of the word, which is Latin disciplina “instruction”, from the root discere “to learn,” and from which discipulus “disciple, pupil” also derives.[1]
To discipline thus means to instruct a person or animal to follow a particular code of conduct, or to adhere to a certain “order.”
It’s never easy to let someone go and that’s what this post is about. But even more specifically it addresses that sometimes it HAS to happen, not because of a “rightsizing” or “parting of ways” but because the contractual agreements in place between the employee and employer are not being met.
Josh, I agree with you about the timing of the article. Funnily enough, I wrote it this summer (thanks for posting it now Kris). However, see notes above to Jessica regarding downsizing (again this post is more about the individual firing than massive layoffs or company downsizing- see also the little tangent in the middle of the post about small businesses) the point is that no matter how lightly you put it, the unwritten message is that you are not valued, even if you are valuable. It’s a primal rejection that sometimes has to occur and it hurts on all sides. No matter what you call it.
Random observations:
Maren, I think the post was effective. I get and agree with JLee on the language front, but at the end of the day, when you look at it from many employee’s point of view, all the softer positioning really doesn’t help.
Also agree with Josh’s points on the economics of the situation. With that in mind, a company doing layoffs may be saying that reducing their expenses is more important that maintaining the relationship with the employee. That’s why the world of work is different for us than it was for our parents, right? No one at FOT will end up where they are now (but all will still be writing here, right?).
To Maren’s credit, she doesn’t overdo her authority here. She says she’s had to do one term. Here’s the good thing, that’s her experience and she’s got opinions. Then you have the following opinions represented:
-JLee – upwardly mobile HR Manager
-Tolan – executive in corp American, now Business Owner.
-Josh L – Marine, impacted by layoff at early stop post-Marines, now business owner.
-Haberman – veteran of the HR game, now running his own HR consulting shop.
It’s an interesting cast of characters. You’ve got idealism, practicality, compassion, cynism, economics, bluntness and detachment included, to name a few. Worth the read for the comments alone, and a group I’d love to sit down with over a beer and hammer away at the issue for hours. Someday…
What would Jack Welch say? What would Peter Gibbons say? Note I’m not giving you a lot of my personal thoughts here. I’m saving all that for the made-for-TV movie…
That was an interesting post, but you left out the most important thing. Firing well demands good supervision first. It’s the supervision where it’s thrashed out that a person either can’t or won’t do what’s required. It’s the supervision that assures that firing is not a surprise.
Backing up a step further, that means selecting people who are willing to do the face-to-face, and sometimes confrontational, part of supervision. It means giving them the training and support so that they can set clear expectations and then coach, counsel, encourage and correct as needed.
If you do this wrong, firing always sucks. If you do it right, it will still suck sometimes because messing with someone else’s life is like that. If it doesn’t make you at least a little uncomfortable, I don’t want you working for me. But if you can’t do it, I don’t want you working for me either.