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If you were going to get fired, and you had a choice of when ...

792 views 16 replies 13 participants last post by  earthmama369 
#1 ·
An employee at our company is a really nice guy but totally inept. Everyone's just let it slide for years because he's such a nice guy. He tries. But he cannot do anything right!

We are at the point where we are frustrated enough to let him go and find someone else who can do the job better.

It's a very small company, and a caring one. Not everything is about "the bottom line" here, but at this point the frustration he is causing other people is just not worth it. But anyway, how should a caring company approach this?

Let's say it was you. Would you want to be let go now, right during the holiday season? Wait until after? When?

Would you appreciate the offer of a part-time position to help make ends meet while you find something else?

How can an employer humanely approach giving a pink slip?
 
#2 ·
Oh, forgot to give some information probably relevant. He's not married, no kids. Lives in an basement apartment in his parent's house (pays them a little rent and also cooks for the extended family 3 or 4 nights a week as part of rent). Has student loans and a huge car payment. I have no idea if he has CC debt. Maybe none of this should matter, but maybe the context helps a bit.
 
#3 ·
Laohaire, your company sounds amazing! Wish it was close so *I* could apply there.


As someone who's being let go during the holidays, I think the timing sucks. If I were trying to do the nicest thing, I would probably tell him now he has until, say, sometime in January to find something else. We've done that at my company if we know he's not the type to sabotage anything. But if he doesn't find anything by then, work out a fair severance package and let him go. There are too many hundreds of thousands of fantastic employees looking for work right now.

Good luck with this tough situation.
 
#5 ·
Yeah, this sucks though, I don't feel very caring when I'm plotting to have him fired


One thing I feared was that if we wait until after the holidays, maybe he'll spend more than he would have if he knew. He does have a girlfriend, and I get the idea she demands nice stuff from him.

Or, yeah, maybe we could tell him now but tell him we can keep him on for another couple of months while he finds something else. He's a very honest person and I do believe he'd still do his work (such that he does) and not sabatoge things, though naturally even the nicest guy in the world is going to see his job differently after he's been fired. I don't know, I'll have to think about that one.

I just wish he could be a better worker
 
#7 ·
first off, as others have said, kudos to you!

anyway, i'd wait until january. and then, since he doesn't seem to be adding much value to the company anyway--and probably much less when he finds out he's being fired---give him a severance for the same amount of money you would have paid him while he stayed on for another month while job hunting. you can tell him that you'd rather give him a severance so that he can spend his time looking for a job, instead of sitting at his desk working for you just to collect some more paycheck.

good luck.
 
#10 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by mtm View Post
does he expect it at all? has he been written up and given a chance to rectify issues? I'd start the warnings now so he knows it may be coming (smarten up or in 60 days you're out of here type thing).
An excellent question, and another one I've been working on (I realize I didn't mention it in my OP). No, he doesn't know yet (and would be stunned if I dropped it on him today), but I do understand that I really should not blindside him. I am working out a plan to talk with him on the problems and give him a trial period. I honestly have almost no hope that he can improve. It's not a matter of effort, but just plain old brains I think. Things just really confuse him, though he really wants to do well. That's why he's been here for years. Gosh, this is tough. It's so much easier when an employee is slacking off or mouthing off or not showing up. I sure wish I knew of a forum for managers, to discuss this type of thing. I just wanted perspective on timing, mostly. So maybe I'll wait until January, give him X weeks (maybe 6) trial, and then the axe.
 
#11 ·
Well, it kind of depends on the person... I know a couple years back I got laid off the Monday after Thanksgiving... the largest shopping weekend of the year. That really sucked. Not that I had purchased anything that I didn't need, since the fridge had died on Thanksgiving day I really didn't have a choice about buying another, but I might have bought a cheaper one. But there were 14 of us laid off that day, so while I hadn't gone on a shopping spree, any number of the others probably had. It also meant that there was no Christmas that year, since my DH had been laid off a couple months prior and we were just getting by as it was. We were totally blind-sided by it.

Next time I got laid off was the first week of January (couple years later). We got all the way through the holidays and all of a sudden I had no job. That time we had seen it coming though, so it wasn't such a shock.

That being said, I got laid off just last week, and it was kind of a relief. My stress is way down, and now we know to take it easy over the holidays. Again we were blind-sided by it, and not even any severance, but now we know the holidays will be light again this year (glad we didn't buy plane tickets for Thanksgiving, though).

I will point out though that we are currently in probably the worst economy in decades, and being unemployed is terribly difficult. Even during decent economies, finding work in Dec-Jan is next to impossible. Last time it took me until March to find something, and that was only part time. So definitely give him some warning... I'd say give him his first warning now, before the holidays, and wait until after the New Year to give him a second. That's your 6 weeks. Then you can give him 2 or 4 weeks notice of termination if you trust him not to get destructive (or just lay him off with that much severance). Regardless of how you let him go though, expect that he will be pursuing unemployment, which means your company will feel the hit for that. Not to say that you should keep paying dead-weight, just things to keep in mind.
 
#12 ·
We've an an employee like this in our business. He wasn't horrible, just wasn't so good. We let it go on too long and finally couldn't take it any more and decided we needed to let him go.

We do random employee reviews (because we are disorganized!) and did a round of reviews for several people, including him. During his review we let him know areas he was required to improve on and let him know that they were necessary areas in order to remain working for us. (He'd had a series of less-than-perfect reviews in the past.) We gave him 3 weeks and lots of support to succeed. He wasn't able to comply, which we knew would be the case, and then we let him go. It was very, very hard to do. However, it was best for us, the business, the other employees who were doing more work for him, and I think ultimately best for him to find a place he was best suited.

If you've waited all this time, wait until January. Do reviews now and give him specific feedback on what to work on. Document, document, document. Support him in being successful, even though you know it might not help. Perhaps he will see the writing on the wall and resign. Or, he might see the writing on the wall and wait to be fired to collect unemployment. Either way, he needs a heads-up and your company needs to have documentation of poor perfomance in place.

You aren't responsible for how much he spends this holiday season. He should know with a bad economy to use caution because everyone's jobs aren't secure. You are responsible for having and keeping a strong team of employees that are well-suited to the work you do. He will be better off in a work environment which matches his skills.
 
#13 ·
I don't know what the case law in your area is like...however, I would caution you to make sure that you DO give him written warnings that he reviews and signs before you terminate him. In our area termination without doing so, unless it's a cost-savings layoff, can be termed "wrongful termination" and there could be a law suit. Not that he sounds like the kind of guy to do that...but it can't hurt to 1) cover your bases, and 2) give him some kind of warning. IF what you need him to do is beyond his capabilities, and he knows this, and knows that it has become an issue for you, he will HOPEFULLY start to look for a job sooner rather than later. I am torn as to whether I'd let him go before christmas or after. Honestly, my husband just got let go a week and a half ago (auto industry lay off). I am glad it happened now, because in January we'd be a month behind in looking for a job when there are now nearly 40000 people who do exactly what my husband does looking for a job at the same time he is! In this job market the sooner you start, the better. Too, we have been able to get help in getting the few gifts for our kids that we get, which we would otherwise have spent money on that we could have put towards bills. So, it's not bad info to have, though it HAS put a bit of a damper on the christmas spirit...
 
#14 ·
Everybody is firing people and tightening the belt in January. You're more likely to find a new job NOW even if it's just a temproary retail gig.

courtenay_e ~ it depends on where you live/work. In AR they can hire/fire at will, I think they call it a will to work state. I would assume an employer would know these things if they are in the business of hiring and firing, but I guess it never hurts to remind them.
 
#15 ·
I don't know if anyone was interested, but I like to see how things turned out in many threads. My boss and I met with the employee in question and made it clear that things need to improve. But we also gave him some very concrete suggestions to improve. Finally, my boss decided - and made it clear - that the worst that's going to happen is that we'll demote him to part-time but NOT fire him. (We can fill up part of his time on easier tasks, but we can't fill up 40 hours a week on those kinds of tasks). Obviously part-time isn't the greatest thing in the world, and if it comes to that, he would probably have to look for a new job. But it's something, it would ease transition if it came to that, and who knows, maybe he would rather stay on part time and do freelance work or something part time.

Anyway, that's how it turned out.
 
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