How do you deliver this news in a way that preserves dignity and without burning bridges?
With layoffs or reductions in force, you’re letting go of capable people due to business needs. So you need to provide a a brief explanation, acknowledging their contributions while explaining that external factors – like budget constraints or restructuring – have forced this decision. The focus stays on circumstances beyond everyone’s control.
In contrast, performance terminations, while you’ll still want to be respectful, the message needs to be clear and brief. State the decision and provide one or two specific reasons why, and keep the discussion concise. This is not the time for lengthy explanations—the decision has been made.
In both cases, express your genuine gratitude for their work – though tailor fit it to the situation; for layoffs, thank them for their valuable contributions. For performance terminations, it’s a simple, respectful thank you for their efforts.
At the most basic level, keeping a simple record of events is a good start. You can use even a Google Doc or a Word document where you log issues as they happen, including the date and year, with a brief note of what happened. While this isn’t ideal for sharing, it’s better than having no record at all.
Beyond basic notes, send a follow-up email after discussing the issue with the employee. This email should include a summary of the conversation and expectations moving forward. This creates a date-stamped record that shows both parties are on the same page, reducing the chance of future disputes.
For more serious issues or repeated patterns, use a formal write-up. This includes specific details about the problem, what needs to change, and a clear warning about potential consequences if the behavior isn’t corrected. This document should remove all ambiguity and set your expectations.
Finally, outline this process during onboarding, so your new hires know what to expect, making it easier to manage issues if and when they occur.
However, there is a bit more nuance when it comes to performance-based terminations. Offering severance can be a strategic win, especially when your documentation wasn’t as thorough as it needed to be. If this is what you choose to do, remember to be transparent. Explain why the situation isn’t working out and present the severance as recognition of their contributions despite the outcome.
Then it’s best to get legal counsel to review any severance agreement you plan to give to your soon-to-be ex-employee. Most agreements like this include protective clauses – from confidentiality to non-disparagement terms. But employees can legally decline these terms, especially if they suspect workplace issues.
And though some of these scenarios might seem extreme, experienced HR professionals know that termination meetings can bring out unexpected reactions in people. Taking time to map out your responses, even if it’s unlikely any of them will happen, helps keep everyone safe and lets you focus on handling the conversation with the care and professionalism needed.
Jill’s suggestions are more like a safety net – you hope you won’t need it, but you’ll be grateful to have it ready just in case.
Jill recommends that instead of pretending it’s an easy decision, show genuine understanding by saying, “I know this isn’t a conversation anyone wants to have, and it’s hard for me as well.” But of course, you need to balance your empathy with direct, clear communication about why the decision was made. This will go a long way in maintaining respect and professionalism and giving your employee the dignity he deserves even during a tough conversation.
Kathy (host):
Well, hello there, and welcome back to another episode of “Help My Business is Growing,” a podcast where we explore how to grow and build a business that is healthy and sustainable. I’m your host, Kathy Sweatina, a fractional CFO and founder of NewCastle Finance, a company where we believe that everything that you do in your business is eventually gonna end up here in finances. And to get to healthy finances is to have a healthy business.
Kathy (host):
Terminating an employee is never easy, but it’s a necessary part of running a business. Whether it’s due to performance issues or a shift in business needs, how you handle the delicate process of letting someone go can make a big difference. Without proper preparation, you risk legal trouble, you can damage your team morale, and potentially even hurt your brand. But when done with care, a well-managed termination can keep things professional and smooth for everyone involved. So how do you know when it’s the right time to let someone go, how can you have these hard conversations with honesty and fairness, and what steps can you take to make sure that the process is clear, respectful, and stays professional?
Kathy (host):
As a reminder, all of the episodes on this podcast have blogs and detailed timestamps, and we linked all of those in our episode show notes. So if you’re interested in that please go ahead and look at it. It’s a resource for you.
Kathy (host):
My guest today is Jill Schroyer. She is the CEO and lead consultant of Expedition HR, which specializes in helping businesses navigate tough workplace conversations without feeling like a jerk. Expedition HR offers on-demand, on-call, expert HR and tough workplace conversation support and guidance. Jill has over two decades of HR experience and is a published author of the book “Conquer Sticky Situations: A Fresh and Empowering Approach to Tough Talks at Work and Life.” Join us.
Kathy (host):
Jill, welcome to the podcast.
Jill (guest):
Thank you so much. Excited to be here.
Kathy (host):
I’m excited that you’re here too because we’re going to be talking about something that’s very real in a growing business, and that is terminating employees and terminating employees well so that they feel as good as they can about it, and that you don’t get in trouble as a company. So let’s first talk about the two differences in termination. One is RIF, which is the reduction in force or a layoff, and then the other one is where you have a performance issue with an employee. What are some of the things that these two termination events differ from each other?
Jill (guest):
Yeah, great to call that out that they are two very separate things. You know, I guess maybe I’ll actually start with what’s similar. Whenever you’re letting someone go, whether it be like “You’re fired, you’re not working out,” or “Hey, unfortunately, we’re eliminating this position,” or we have a series of reduction in force layoffs—is to keep it simple, and when you sit down with them, both instances, the first thing you want to say is, “We’re letting you go today.”
Jill (guest):
And the biggest difference, I’d say, is with a layoff, a reduction of force, it’s great to give them a little bit of background as to why this is happening because it’s really important that they know they’re not getting fired per se, that we wish we could keep them on, they were great, and that we still have to let them go, whether it be budget reasons or we no longer need this section of the business type of thing. Firing someone for performance is similar in that you want to tell them right then, “Hey, we’re here today because we’re letting you go.” We don’t want them to wonder what’s going on in the meeting. It always seems very suspicious when we go into a surprise meeting anyway. And while I still think it’s important to give them a reason, I always say we don’t want to give too much, or a laundry list of reasons, because it’s just not the time—the decision has been made. And so, like a layoff, it’s important to give them something, but with termination for cause, we’ll say, like a performance issue, keep it really, really short and sweet, I’d say one reason, two at the most. And if they push back, you want to just say, “You know, the decision’s been made. We know this is hard to hear.” Actually, you’d say that in both cases, you know, “We’re sorry we have to deliver this news today, and thanks for the work you did.” You know, with a layoff, you might want to say, “Thanks for your great work. You brought us this far.” For firing for performance, sometimes I get asked, “Why would you thank them at the end—you’re firing them,” and I usually say, you can still thank them for the work they did. You don’t have to say, “Thanks for the good work” because you’re firing them. You could just say, “Hey, thanks for the work you did with us.”
Kathy (host):
Yes, how was the process? And let’s go to the firing for the performance, because that also involves documentation. So I want to really go deep into this. Let’s say for example—and I’m going to give you a hypothetical example that I’m sure you have seen it over and over and over again—is, let’s say that you have had someone for a couple of months in your business, and then you realize this is just not working out, and the performance isn’t there. You have tried as much as possible to steer them in the direction that you need to steer them. Let’s say, for example, even I have seen this in businesses, where someone comes in from another business and they try to force the way they have done that in the previous business, in your business, and as much as you have tried to say, “Hey, we have, we are a different business. We have our own set of systems and processes. We have to follow these. This is how I do things,” and they’re just not getting it, so you need to essentially fire them. How would you go about that? Let’s put this as an example.
Jill (guest):
Great. Yeah, that Kathy, that definitely happens. You know, I always say, like, sometimes we make what I call bad hires. They look—in fact, I was helping a client with this, you know, six months ago—it’s, you know, they had the best resume. They met, you know, checked all the boxes, they said all the right things, and you’re super excited. And then, like you said, a couple months in, you’re like, “Whoo.” What I call is they’re the set-in-their-ways kind of person. They’re not willing to kind of learn your company.
Jill (guest):
So yes, a very common scenario. So I’ll kind of frame it two ways. First, let’s talk about what you would ideally have done. So maybe someone listening can say, “Okay, for next time”—is when you’re onboarding someone keep what I call like just a watch document, like a Google document, which basically just notes, like the goods and the bad. You know what? Things they’re excelling in early on, maybe something you needed to correct, nothing major. But like, “Oh, I had to talk to them about this from day one,” kind of as part of their onboarding, like that you do kind of in the background. And it’s not so much something that has to go in the file right away. It’s just kind of watching and seeing how it goes.
Jill (guest):
So if at any point, let’s say, a month in, you’re thinking, “I just don’t think this is working out,” you can go back to this watch document, which I call a Google Doc, so it can be easily shared with maybe an HR partner in your business, or someone else that you work with, and you can say, “You know, my gut is right. There’s a lot of things I’ve had to correct. It’s probably time,” or “You know, we have corrected a few things. But this is normal for a new employee. Let’s keep going.” And then after two months, maybe… So that’s ideal that you have a record of instances so that you could go to them and say, “Hey, you know, Joe, I’m going to share a few things that have not been going well. It’s only two months, and I think it’s best we part ways now.”
Jill (guest):
The example you gave, you kind of wake up one day and realize “I can’t keep going with this person.” And you have not done that watch document. There are ways to still go about that. So the first thing I usually suggest is before you do something you know that you are going to regret really quickly and create a really angry employee and maybe ruin your reputation, pause for a minute before you talk to the employee. Before you just fire them and note, you know, whether just like, by hand or in a document, like, why you’re coming to this decision that they need to be let go in like, “Okay, yeah, last week I talked to them about this.” So get something in place that you can kind of look at to see a timeline.
Jill (guest):
And it’s sometimes really hard at that point, though, because you’re like, when was that, you know, it’s October now, was that September? Maybe it was end of August, or was it July? And we don’t want to be doing that, because, as you can imagine when you have to tell them, it’s going to sound really fuzzy about like when we talked about things. But that’s the best you can do, is go back and try and recollect just what happened. And once you have some details, at that point, is when, not before, is when I would say you could talk to them and say, “Hey, I have three instances that I have, you know, experienced with you in the past, you know, whatever it is, two or three months, the first one,” and you can tell them honestly, it’s like, “You know, I honestly don’t have the exact date, Joe, it was, you know, end of July, early August. Joe, do you recall we talked about deadlines? You missed a deadline on the, you know, ABC project.” Joe may or may not agree or remember, which is why you want that documentation from the get-go.
Jill (guest):
So maybe you would have, you know, reached out to him initially in an email so he remembers, but we’re dealing with kind of what to do now and then. Maybe share another instance and say, “And also in September, we had a deadline come and go. To my recollection, it was September 7th or 8th.” And again, you’d want to give them the exact date. But if we weren’t documenting it, this is the best we can do. And then, “You know, Joe, for those reasons, I’m going to let you go.” And most states are at-will. So unless you know there’s some other factor at play, you can typically let someone go, if you’re under 15 employees, and not get in too much hot water. But you know, obviously I’m not a lawyer. Can’t certify that.
Jill (guest):
But the key would be to find as much documentation also too. I should add look back and see if you had email exchanges with this employee saying, “Hey Joe, you know, you missed this. Do better next time.” Or, you know, see what you can pull together. And only at that point would I say, let them go.
Jill (guest):
Now, I don’t know if you’re looking for this, but I think there’s an important layer to add in, if it’s a year in and we haven’t been documenting and now we just need to let them go, which I’ve seen. I’m sure a lot of people listening have said, “Oh, I’ve been in that spot.” In that instance, I would say, watch it for a little bit and document some things before you just let them go, see if all these things that were an issue in the past year resurface. It’s not the same situation at a year, because kind of shame on the employer if they have not logged anything that hasn’t been going well, or emailed the employee or written them up more formally. But back to that two to three month example—just give them any details you’re able and then I would say, don’t mess with it any longer. If they’re within a few months, there’s no law that says you’re free and clear if it’s within 90 days. I think a lot of businesses say, “Oh, it’s within 90 days.” Doesn’t really mean anything. It’s still an at-will state. It just makes it easier, because you’ve seen things early on.
Kathy (host):
And I think with 90 days it also, especially if you have set the expectation at the beginning of the hiring process, there’s almost an expectation that it might or might not work, so the employee is not completely caught off guard. Hey, if this is not working, I didn’t expect this at all.
Jill (guest):
I love that you called that out. Yeah, like during, you know, the interview, if you make an offer, say, “Look, you know, we’re really excited about, you know that within 90 days, though, we’re really making sure that this is the right fit. So we may talk to you in that time frame if we don’t feel like things are working out.” And of course, the argument there is, like, it’s tough to really assess someone within a month or two. So I’m always a fan of, “Hey, these are big things. This is making me nervous. You’re not meeting the mark” and giving them like one final chance is my preference always, because I always say we want to make sure before we let them go that they know. And I mean, use this verbiage like, “If you don’t fix these things, you will not be working here anymore.” And a lot of business owners are scared to say that if they do want to give them another chance. And I say, you know, the actual verbiage, like “Failure to correct the behavior may result in further disciplinary action leading up to and including termination.” That’s the best verbiage because employees will have no question that fixing it or else.
Kathy (host):
And this might be a hard question to answer, but if you are getting patterns of you’re hiring people, and within 90 days, it is just not working out, and you get like, two, three candidates like this—what at a certain point do you have to step back and say, “Is it the people that I’m hiring, or is it maybe me problem?”
Jill (guest):
I love that you asked that. Let me make sure I’m understanding the question. So say you have someone for two months and you’re like, this isn’t working out. You let them go, and then the situation gets on repeat, and it happens again that they’re just not working out. Kind of like, what do you do? Well, I’m gonna make a bold statement that it’s likely a business owner or whoever’s doing the hiring problem at that point. Lack of expectation setting is often the biggest culprit.
Jill (guest):
You know, I’ve seen those instances, and they’re just confused about why they keep getting the wrong person. They might be resistant to using some sort of formal process of interviewing and onboarding, but it’s expectations typically, and taking the time to write like a good job description. And you know, the job description I offer actually goes an extra mile—like most that I share it with are like, “Oh, I’ve never seen these.” There are two things, and I’d be happy to share them here if they’re helpful to anyone listening. One is like, what does success look like in 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, six months and a year? And if you—if you know, sometimes I ask business owners for this, and they’re like, “I don’t know.” I said, “Well, figure it out.” Because you don’t—if you don’t know what success looks like, you’re never going to get the right person, or we might have unrealistic expectations of them.
Jill (guest):
And the other thing that I recommend outlining at first is like, what are their non-negotiables? Like, what must you have when you’re interviewing someone? Like, a simple example is like, let’s say you have a front desk receptionist in your office. They must be warm, they must be friendly. They can’t scare off guests and visitors. And if they don’t have that quality, they are not going to work out. And I see business owners, you know—although we don’t focus on recruiting, I see a lot of clients bring in people, and I’m like, “What was their non-negotiable?” And they said, “Well, it was this, but we just didn’t get anyone, so we hired this person.” I’m like, you went against your non-negotiable. That’s why it’s not working out. It could be a values fit, like one of our values is this, and we, you know, “Jill, we just had a really small pool of candidates. We just had to let someone in that maybe wasn’t a values fit.”
Kathy (host):
That’s really good, yeah, especially, I mean, if you’re hiring people who are customer facing or public facing people like salespeople, might be like you said the receptionist. I mean, there’s certain expectations that you have, whether you articulate them or not, but they are expectations that you have for those people, the way how they interact with the greater public.
Jill (guest):
I love how you said that. I heard something the other day, and it was talking about expectations, and I was like, I love—I’m gonna—I don’t remember exactly how it was phrased, but it was something to the tune of like, there’s all this talk about expectations, and oftentimes we say, “Yeah, I’ve relayed the expectations,” and they’re only up here. And the things we’ve said are not expectations. We only have them in our head. And what we share with the candidate isn’t actually what we expect. Like we’re giving them only like a fraction of the information, but we know we’re expecting this from them up here. So it’s like this imbalance of like information.
Kathy (host):
And then there’s also this idea of, “Well, they have had this job before. They should know already how to do it.” But the thing is, yes, they might know the job, but they don’t know your company and your expectation. And then going back to this, what is your process in the company? What are your systems? How do you want them to interact with other people and within the company itself?
Jill (guest):
Yes, one thing I was going to add too, that might be kind of further to what you asked earlier, is when one person goes. What I often see, too, is like, “Okay, that two-month person didn’t work out,” and the company’s like, “Ready to hire the next person, let’s go.” And I say, “Whoa, like, let’s slow down.” And they’re like, “No, we need someone in.” And I say, what was it that they didn’t have? In this instance, I was thinking of the employee was everything. They had a great interview. They had all the things on the resume. They checked all the boxes. And I said, “Well, what was the thing that they didn’t have?” And they said, “Well, they had the skills, but they just couldn’t like execute to the level we needed.” And I said, “Okay, well, what question can we ask the next person that’s gonna flush that out?” Because if we don’t take knowledge from a termination into the next time we hire the position, you’re leaving like a gold mine untapped.
Kathy (host):
Yeah, it’s almost like those—you know, you are gonna make mistakes, obviously, but it’s, are you gonna learn from them?
Jill (guest):
Kathy, totally, you articulated that better. Yes, like shame—it’s like, shame on them if it happens once, and shame on us if it happens twice.
Kathy (host):
Yeah, exactly. And you mentioned something, you made a clear distinction of having an employee in the business for a couple of months, especially in that, you know, imaginary 90-day probation period, but then having them with your business after a year. So let’s go back to that. Why is it for the employee that’s been in your business for longer than that? How does that termination differ from someone who’s only been for a couple of months?
Jill (guest):
Yeah, I love that question. So you know, kind of at a year point when I, like, for instance, when I have a client that comes and said, “I’ve got this person,” I say, “Okay, when were they hired?” They said “A year ago.” And I said, “Okay, so, like, what’s been going on?” They tell me, I say, “Have you talked to them about it,” and they say, “No, but we’re done. We can’t keep going.” And you’ll have to tell me if I’m answering the question right. And I say, “Okay, so let’s switch roles. If you’re in a role after a year and you’ve gotten no feedback, and you’re just told you’re not working out, you know, how would that feel?” And they said, “No, we get what you’re saying.”
Jill (guest):
So I say in that case, maybe it’s a final warning and again. So same process as that two month instance in that we’re going back and looking at instances and at least giving them some context, which they’ll likely say, “Yep, I get that. I see where I didn’t meet the mark there.” And I, after a year, I would always say, I wouldn’t let them go right then. I would set a time frame, tell them exactly what is not working out. And this doesn’t have to be months and months—after maybe 30 days, figure out some measurables that they can meet or not meet, and then then let them go. You’ll keep your reputation more intact by knowing that you at least tell people this isn’t working out. And some people, as you know Kathy, they sometimes can come around when they’re told you are not working out. It’s just what they need to snap out of it and get better. I find that’s like 20% of the case, but 80% of the time, they’re often not working out, and they’ve stayed too long. The company’s wasted a lot of money, but I guess, in summary, I feel like we owe it to an employee, because shame on us if we let a year go by and we did not give them feedback, and now we want to fire them.
Kathy (host):
And you’ve talked a lot about documentation, and I know that employers, business owners hear a lot about documentation, but I really want to go deeper into this. What does that mean, and how does that really look like in practicality?
Jill (guest):
Yeah, my favorite question. I don’t know how much you want Kathy, feel free to say, “Okay, Jill, I got it.” So documentation can be so easy. It can be that watch document just noting a date, and please put the year. That’s a common thing I see, like if it’s October 15, put October 15, 2024, because these things, if they go on, you’ll want to reference a year. Can be as easy as a Google Doc that you can share with someone. It can be a Word document that you’re logging instances on, but those aren’t what I say ideal, because they’re not sharing anything. Well, you might have made a comment to an employee, but this document’s just like noting things.
Jill (guest):
I say a better—so we’ll do like good, better, best. So that’s good to have something written down. Better would be when an instance happens, log it on your watch Doc, and send the—have the meeting, and send the employee a follow-up email. And we’ll call that a coaching that says, “Hey, Kathy, you know, I’ve noticed this. We talked about this today. That’s a big part of your role, so please just make sure that that doesn’t happen in the future.” Now it’s a date and time stamp documentation, which is really better than just us noting something, because again, going back to that example, someone could say, “I don’t remember that.” And in this case, you could pull up the email and they say, “Oh, I do remember. Yep, you emailed me that.” So everyone’s on the same page.
Kathy (host):
Yeah. And would you, if you’re sending an email, would you still keep a separate document of those things as well somewhere? So in addition to, or is it, this is better, so you don’t have to have the document?
Jill (guest):
It is, it’s better. And I say it’s an “and” thing because if you want a quick snapshot of all the things that have been going on, it’s a great way, instead of like, “Whoa, I got to pull all these emails.” So I still love the idea of a tracking document, but I like to layer on this, like, okay, a date and time stamped email. And now when I say good, better, best, the better would be potentially an email that could be just a quick meeting with the employee. You could call it a coaching. Best might be a write-up, like a formal disciplinary warning that says, “Hey, this is happening. It’s got to be fixed. Here’s the thing, here’s the instances, here’s how I want it fixed,” and it has that “failure to correct the behavior” verbiage. Really leaves no room for misinterpretation.
Jill (guest):
So again, you might be saying, “Well, but it’s not that serious.” So then I would go back to have a meeting and send a follow-up email. That’s great documentation. I think the biggest thing I see, well, I know the biggest thing I see is like, I say, “Did you document it?” And it’s just like, I can see the like—”I don’t even know what that means.” So it can be any of these things. And to be clear, any of them are better than nothing. And as we go up in severity in whatever the infraction is, of course, the more direct we can get on the documentation, the better.
Kathy (host):
How about a combination of these? For example, let’s say that you have someone who’s not performing well, and you’re like, “Well, maybe it’s just a separate thing, but I’m still going to keep it on my log. I’m not going to send them an email just yet.” And then you’re seeing it happens the second time, and then it happens the third time, and now you’re seeing that. And say, “Hey, I have noticed, and the three times that this has happened, I am sending you an email.” And then you have a meeting with them, right? And you tell them that if, for example, this is not resolved within whatever amount of time, then you’re going to do a formal write-up. And after that formal write-up, if that’s not resolved, then it’s going to be a termination or something like that. So it almost becomes like a step versus, I’m just doing this, I’m going directly into a formal write-up, or I’m just going directly into an email.
Jill (guest):
Yes, so I think, yeah, severity, but that watchdog can be present with all the other ones too. Like, let’s say you had to involve an employment lawyer or something. It’s great for them to see at a glance like, what are all the things that have been happening? But yeah, have the meeting, send a follow-up email. And, yes, if it keeps happening, what I see often Kathy is we get stuck in the like, sending them an email or and it has nothing like “if you don’t fix this”—just like you said, actually, I love what you said, like telling them, “Look, this isn’t that serious now, if you can fix it. If you don’t fix it, you can probably expect a written warning down the road.” So they leave the meeting like, crystal clear. Got it.
Jill (guest):
A lot of businesses, and most businesses, are afraid to take it to that next level, because it is scary to tell someone like “failure to correct the behavior”—like nobody wants to say that. Nobody wants to issue a form that says disciplinary warning. And I usually say, make sure that we’re not hiding behind like, “Oh, but I documented it,” but they never knew.
Kathy (host):
And this procedure, whatever you have, should you also communicate that within your onboarding so that people know what to expect? Because what I like about this, as an employee comes in and you have the expectation, yes, things are going to go wrong and you’re going to be corrected, but this is how we’re going to do it. So you’re like, you’re completely I would say setting that expectation. What would happen if they’re not performing? What’s your take on that?
Jill (guest):
Yeah, I would say, you know, a handbook isn’t required, but you are required to like, tell people applicable laws. So if you’re over 15, you’ve got to tell people the laws. So whether it’s through a handbook or some other way. So for this type of kind of procedure, I would say issuing all new employees a handbook that outlines this process in there—like, I’ve got template verbiage that it’s basically like “we believe in progressive discipline.” So basically, we believe that if things aren’t resolved through a quick meeting or coaching, we move to some sort of written warning, which could move up to a final warning and termination. And in the new hire meeting or onboarding meetings, you have to read them the handbook, of course, but I usually say call out a few policies that are really important and you’re exactly right. This is one that I say, make sure employees are aware, because I say nobody likes a performance surprise, and nobody likes to be surprised that like, “Whoa. We do write-ups here.” If you tell them again, it’s not going to make it like, not a disappointment to them. Like, “Oh shoot. You know, I’m getting kind of yelled at,” but they’re going to be aware at least that it could happen.
Kathy (host):
And let’s talk about severance. When—and we’re recording this, obviously, in the US, so if you’re outside of the US, you might have different laws. So this is specifically for United States. When should you consider offering severance? And are you ever obligated to give severance?
Jill (guest):
Great question. So severance is a great idea when you’re laying someone off, it’s what I call like an act of good faith. It’s like, “Hey, we’re so sorry. We’re pulling the rug from under you.” You know, typically, like a month for every year of service. But some can do less, some do more, depending on the role. Some roles have an agreement that if they’re let go, they do get a certain amount of severance.
Jill (guest):
So in a layoff, I think it’s just the right thing to do personally, and like I say, a small business could say “We’re just going to do two weeks—we can’t afford anymore.” That still, to me, is an act. It’s a great reputation thing. Now, if you’re letting someone go for cause there’s times when I recommend it. And without getting too deep into like employment laws, I don’t want to infer that I’m a lawyer, but so there might be a situation, let’s say that year example, that you’ve got someone who’s been with you a year. Let’s say you have over 15 employees, so you kind of are bound to more kinds of regulations and laws and you have documentation, it’s just not as buttoned up as you’d like. You don’t want them to go find other things that maybe you didn’t do as well.
Jill (guest):
And so I usually see too, it’s an act of good faith saying, “You know, we’re kind of sorry we let this go a year. We can’t keep you because it’s just not working out.” And I think the messaging is important to say, “Here’s why we’re doing it, because there were issues, and here’s what they were, and we probably could have maybe done better as well. Bottom line, it’s not working out. We’d like to offer you a few weeks just because we just want to thank you for what you did do for us.” Or if there’s some sort of risk involved, because a severance agreement will basically, if they sign it and say, “Yes, I’ll accept your $5,000” or whatever the case, you wouldn’t want to pay them out until they’ve signed the agreement.
Jill (guest):
And you can write, you know, you have a lawyer do it, but you can write anything in there. Like I even have seen clients say, “I want them to take all like stickers off their car that say our company name.” You know, “I want them to not do this, this and this,” and they have to sign off on it. And if you have a lawyer do it, which is the right way, it’s a legal document. They can’t speak ill about your company. They’re not supposed to share details of what happened. And they can’t sue you, so it really covers the employer, but an employee has no obligation to sign the severance.
Jill (guest):
So if there’s high risk, a smart employee is going to see through it, and a smart employee would not sign a severance if they think you have done wrong as the employer. So that’s why I usually say just be careful, because it’s not like a silver bullet either. If you think you haven’t done things well, and when I say, like, after a year, if you feel like you haven’t documented if there’s no glaring like, employment law concerns, then I think a severance is a great option as like, “Hey, thanks for your time here.” If there’s a legal concern, it’s 50/50, whether the employee’s gonna say, “You know, I’m smarter than this, I’m gonna go get a lawyer and get $100,000 instead of the 5,000 they’re offering me.” Again, that might have been more than you need to know, but there are instances, even with a termination, where a severance may make sense. And I have recommended it to clients before.
Kathy (host):
And we actually do have, just as a note, if you’re listening to this, we actually do have a special episode about settlements, employee settlements as well. So if you have that specific question, just go reference that episode, and you kind of give me a good segue into like, really, really difficult terminations, and especially termination when there is a probability that the employee is going to be really pissed off and there’s a potential that they become violent. Unfortunately, that is a reality. So let’s talk a little bit about that. What can you do to protect yourself as an employer, yourself as an employer, and obviously the people that are still in your business?
Jill (guest):
Yeah. So even for layoffs, I—as the same as a termination for cause—I say it’s going to be worth its weight in gold, to make a list of what I call “what ifs.” And what those are, are all the things that could happen being what you mentioned, Kathy, like, “What if they get really violent? What if they pick up a chair and throw it at me? What if they start screaming? What if they pull a gun?” I mean, we hope none of these things happen, but that’s what I’m getting at with this what-if list.
Jill (guest):
The what-if list should also include, “What if they cry? What if they go silent? What if they tell you you’re all wrong? What if they say you’re an awful person?” Think of all these things, including the violent ones, and then note, okay, what can I do? What measures could I potentially put in place? So for a simple example, if they cry, do I have a box of tissues where they’re going to be it’s awkward if someone’s crying to not be able to hand them a tissue. If you think they’ll be violent, call local law enforcement and ask if they’ll stand outside the door or in the room with you, if you think it’s going to be that dangerous.
Jill (guest):
I always say, you know, so I have a client every now and then who has a termination coming up that I’m worried about from what they’ve told me. And I say, and I mention this, and they say, “Wow, really? Call local law enforcement?” And I say, “Well, would you rather have nothing happen and have a police person standing there or say, ‘Ooh, that feels like overkill,’ and then have something really bad happen that you’re not prepared for?” And they always say, “Well, yeah, I’d rather.” And I, you know, it’s like anything in life when we plan well, we likely can field the things that come in, you know, as I say, from left field. If we don’t plan, that’s when a lot of things tend to happen.
Jill (guest):
I like the expression, you know, 80% of things we worry about don’t happen, and 20% if they do happen, they weren’t worth worrying about in the first place. So if we have what-ifs now, we’ve mitigated everything that could potentially happen, or at least given our best shot at brainstorming all those things.
Kathy (host):
And I think I’ve asked you this when we were prepping for this episode, how many times is it that the things that you have had under what-ifs—whether there’s, you know, someone crying, or whether there’s someone that are potentially violent—how many times did those actually come true?
Jill (guest):
Yeah, so violence ones, thankfully never. There’s never been, you know, when I was back in the workforce, like working within HR, at companies, and since I’ve been a consultant, helping clients, we’ve put these measures in place, and nothing’s happened, thankfully, which is always ideal. And a lot of times the other ones happen. So when I say, you know, the person cries, this is someone that maybe doesn’t typically cry. That happens, or the person that they say, “Oh, they’re just gonna blast me. They’re gonna tell me I’m awful,” and that person goes silent, and they would never have thought this person would go silent.
Jill (guest):
But people do strange things when they’re terminated. Some people that we never think would get violent or loud become very loud and vocal and angry, and some that we think are just going to kind of sit or—I should say, the ones we think are going to sit there become angry, and those that we think are going to get super angry go silent. And that can be very unsettling. And I think those two situations are the most common I see. And the client will tell me after “I’m so glad we prepared for the silence, because it was awkward. It would have been very awkward if we didn’t have a plan” to the tune of, if they get silent, you kind of say, “Okay, well, that’s the end of the meeting. We’ll walk you out.” And if they don’t respond, you just kind of start moving them towards the door.
Kathy (host):
So is there anything else that you can be—and I like, and I would like to go over some of these scenarios. For example, what do you do if someone goes silent?
Jill (guest):
Yeah. So in a termination, I always say especially—I mean, even for a layoff—have what you’re going to say, you know, script it out whether you like that word or hate that word, or use bullets. Know what you’re going to say, and don’t introduce something new in the meeting. So you have your bullets. And it should not take five minutes for either one of these instances. It should be very quick. If they push back you field what they say, and say, “Oh, the decision’s been made.” If they go silent, you’re going to get through your script. And then you basically just say, “Okay, well, thanks for you”—you continue with your script. You don’t let it unseat you that they’re going silent, and you just move them out. And if they fail to respond, you just keep talking as if they’re saying, “Okay, sure, it’s time to go to my car” and just kind of escort them out.
Kathy (host):
And you’ve talked about the script, is there a specific script, that template that you would recommend people use?
Jill (guest):
Yeah. So I teach it in my book “Conquer Sticky Situations.” I write about my five-step formula, which essentially can be used in a termination as well. It’s basically, you say, “Thanks, you know, thanks for meeting with me.” You say, “We’re here today because we are letting you go.” And then you give them a reason or two. You don’t want to give them a big list. And then you say, you know, “Here’s your insurance information” or anything they need upon departing. And then you say, “Thanks for the work you did. We’re going to go ahead and walk you out to your car.” If that’s a situation—I usually recommend making sure you watch them go to their car or escort them there in a termination. But, yeah, really simple. It’s like five things: thanks, why you’re there, what the things are, here’s your benefits, do you have any questions, and then, thanks for your work, here we go out to your car.
Kathy (host):
And what do you do if they become really angry afterward?
Jill (guest):
Yeah, like, as you’re going through it, I see that a lot, a lot of like, pushback. Like, you know, you’ll say, “Okay, we’re here today because we’re firing you.” “Oh, you’re firing me? Oh really, you’re firing me? Really, seriously?” And they kind of look around or do some sort of body language. The goal is to keep going with what you plan to say, and it’s totally okay to say, if you’re on Zoom, a gentle like hand motion to say, “I understand you’re upset, and I’ll just ask you—let me share a couple reasons.” And they might say, “I don’t want reasons. Just give me my check.” I’ve had people like cut you off and they walk out in the middle of the meeting, which is fine, and you just want to follow them and make sure they get to their car. It’s okay if we don’t get through the whole script, but if they get really angry and they want to go through all the instances, which is quite common, they get almost like belligerent, like they want to go through everything that’s happened and say, “You were out to get me from the start.” I mean, when I’ve coached clients for a while, this is very rare, because we’ve told them along the way. They shouldn’t be surprised, but these terminations that you know someone maybe brings me in to help them with, they do often get very angry. So asking them, “Hey, I under”—you can completely politely interrupt and say, “I understand this is unsettling. I understand you’re angry. I understand there’s many things you’d like to say and the decision’s been made,” and you might have to do that a few times. Don’t introduce, don’t like, feed into what they’re saying. If they start saying, “Oh, but you didn’t know this. And you didn’t know this,” unless there’s something really, like, “Whoa, that was really—I didn’t know” and it’s pertinent to the situation. Just tell them, “I understand you’re not happy about this” kind of have your safety script, like things you’ll say as part of your what-ifs—what am I going to say if they start tearing into me and tell me I’m a liar? And you know, you always want to give them a second to vent. We don’t want to shut people down too fast, and it’s okay to shut them down. We don’t—we are in charge of this meeting. We are letting them go. Now, a quick aside, when I said, like, unless they bring up something that you had no idea about, it’s always okay to say, “You know, I did not know that—that may factor into this decision. We’re gonna pause this meeting. I’m gonna send you home. I’ll call you tomorrow with the status.” So if—but that’s kind of something that’s on an individual basis. You’d want to, like, I’d want to walk them through, like, what exactly happened. But typically, yes, you want to stay to your script. Don’t introduce something new. Repeat yourself. Angry people hate things being told to them again. Repetition can often kind of take people down in a good way, like it can help them kind of deflate a little bit to say, “All right, I’m not going to get anywhere by yelling at this person that’s letting me go.”
Kathy (host):
And I think the most important thing would probably be not to feed into that anger and start raising your voice or anything like that. It would be, just remain calm and do it right.
Jill (guest):
Oh Kathy, totally. That’s a great point. You know, preparing like, if you’re someone that gets kind of fired up when others get fired up, okay, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna take a breath and then respond? Am I gonna have someone there with me who I can deflect to? I always say, have more than one person in there to begin with, just so they see what happens. But yeah, we’ve got to know ourselves, too, and it’s nobody likes their buttons to be pushed, but if we are going to yell back, that’s not where we want to be in a termination meeting.
Kathy (host):
How about if they are crying? We’ve talked about that you make sure that you have a box of tissues just in case, anything else that you can do if they start sobbing in front of you?
Jill (guest):
Yeah, you know empathy is always the right way to go about it when they’re angry or when they’re sad. Like, “I understand this must be really hard to hear, and you have every right to feel how you’re feeling,” and just like, give them a minute. I call that the human-centered approach. I talk a lot about that in my book, like, let’s not forget we’re all humans. Like, we don’t have to fire someone like a big jerk and just be mean and yell. We can still apply empathy in a termination meeting and say, “Gosh, I”—and you can say, “I’m so sorry to deliver this news. It’s hard to hear, and we do have, you know, our reasons, and we’re just sorry it didn’t work out.” It’s okay to—like because you are, you know it—nobody likes to lose their job, and even though they didn’t work out, it’s okay to still show empathy. So that’s what I would say, is insert empathy.
Kathy (host):
And you know this, this might be like a whole other episode by itself, but I—this episode would not be complete if I didn’t ask—are there any tips that you can give for firing a family member in a family business?
Jill (guest):
Yeah, well, that’s a good one. Probably one of the hardest scenarios, you know, I have worked with clients who have people related to them in the business, and we’ve had things like this come up. You know, I like to say nothing really changes in that, like, we’re still treating them kindly and we’re fair. Now, depending like, what kind of a relationship it is—I like to keep things really simple Kathy, and say, you know, nothing really changes. We still want to thank them, tell them we care about them. The one thing and this is also like managers, managing either a friend or a family member—it’s really important that—and I think just call it out: “I have my business hat on right now.” And when they talk like, “Hey, Jane, I’m gonna take that hat off right now and speak to you as you know my cousin or whoever you are. I care about you as a family, and I don’t want anything to change there. And I must put my—I mean your boss hat on now and tell you this is not working out for these reasons.” And just like asking them to understand that these are two different things. What we don’t ask is, like, you must, you know, be easy on me. You know, this is hard. Like, we don’t want to say that because nobody cares. Like, with the manager. They don’t like, they’re like, they’re firing me. I’m not, I’m not going to give them sympathy. Instead, say, just understand that I need to wear these two hats, not asking you to feel bad for me as your boss. Understand though I’ve got to remove one hat. And I say, like, do the motion? Like, remove one hat, put on the other one. In fact, I was helping a client with this little while back, just a friend relationship. One became the manager, and they’re close friends, and so it’s, it’s really, really tricky. And I said, just call it out that it’s, it’s hard to be in the spot and you want it to work, and what part of the conversation you’re wearing, which hat for.
Kathy (host):
That’s a great, great tip. Jill, thank you so much. Yeah, my last question for you is, if someone is in this predicament that they need to go and terminate someone in their business in the very near future, what would your one advice be for them to make this better for themselves and for their employee?
Jill (guest):
One thing? Gosh, one thing. Well, I think I’m gonna go back to when you are getting ready to tell them the news. Just remember to be human-centered and be fair, and don’t try and pretend that it’s easy for you to let them go. And that’s being human-centered, just saying, “I don’t want to be here either. This is a hard conversation to have. You know, I don’t have to do this. I haven’t had to do this a lot. I’m feeling really sad telling you this news.” Just be human-centered about it, and being direct with what you need to share with them about the why.
Kathy (host):
Yeah, thank you so much. Jill, this has been such an action-packed, tip-packed episode. I mean, it’s definitely a great resource for our listeners. But if someone wants to learn more about you, can you tell us? Where can people find you?
Jill (guest):
Sure? Well, I alluded to it a couple of times. I wrote a book called Conquer sticky situations, and the kind of subtitle is a fresh and empowering approach to tough talks at work and in life. Because, as you might have gathered, that’s my zone of genius, you know, terminations or work performance issues. So that’s a great way to just learn more about how I operate, and how I teach. There’s, I mean, there’s loads of value in there with how to have the conversation. So that’s a great resource, you know, for, you know, just a few dollars, but also reaching out to me on LinkedIn is a great way to connect. And even if someone just reaches out and says, Hey, I heard the podcast, this was helpful. That means the world to me to know that someone got a little kind of a tip that they are able to take action on. And then our website, expedition, hr.com we offer free consults if anyone is interested in getting any type of ongoing support for when these types of tricky situations come up.
Kathy (host):
Yeah. So if you got value out of this podcast, I encourage you to DM send a direct message or email to Jill, she’s going to be happy to hear from you. Jill, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Jill (guest):
Thank you, Kathy, super fun.
