Five Steps to Risk-Free Terminations While Improving Company Culture
I had a coaching session this morning with a successful business owner. She was frustrated because she wanted to terminate an employee, but felt her hands tied. As an entrepreneur, building her business is what drives her. Over the years in driving the business, she was not concerned about policies and procedures for employees. Why should she? She had only a few employees and they were close, almost like family. There was nothing to worry about… Fast forward a few years and experience growth and success, not all of the employees get it now. This particular employee, who the business owner wants to terminate, decides to display his own entrepreneurial spirit and won’t follow along with the mission and vision she created for the business. She knows she is justified in her reason to terminate him. Then the hesitation: “should I do it? Is now the right time? Will I get sued? Will I have to endure unemployment hearings?” What to do…
Does this sound familiar to you?
The reason I decided to write about this today is because this morning’s conversation reminded me of my ‘corporate career’ when I was Director of Human Resources for some major retailers. I’d get the frantic call or email from a District Manager or Regional Manager and even CEO that “we must fire a top performing employee right away”. What? Why? What happened? They had been a star employee… So, with calm and reserve, I’d thank them for contacting me first [instead of going guns blazing and terminating alone]. I always thanked them because in most of the cases in my experience (at least 10 years at the Director level) if we had terminated immediately, we would have exposed the company to potential and unnecessary legal claims.
So what happened?
Let’s face it, owners and managers are always going to be more concerned about driving business and they should! Yet, they’re not the greatest at properly communicating timely feedback to employees. They’re too busy running the business! They’re not the best at having tough conversations regarding performance. They simply expect results. And, they’re definitely more focused on results than effort. So, unfortunately, they unintentionally send mixed messages. Instead of expending the energy, often times the manager might look the other way when they should take a few minutes to explain the importance of why a particular (violated) policy must be followed. What’s worse is, in most cases, when the violation happened or the error was surfaced, they don’t address it with the sense of urgency as to make sure it doesn’t happen again. So, it does happen again, over and over again. The manager gets more and more disgusted yet the employee doesn’t understand the magnitude of the situation which of course infuriates the manager even more. The employee is simply unaware because they’re not mind readers either. They can’t be expected to interpret what a dirty look from their boss really meant. They probably think the boss is having a bad day – couldn’t be their fault! The manager doesn’t understand. They say “Why don’t they get it? They know better!” But do they? Do they really? Now, in the manager’s defense, it’s difficult to address issues in the moment. It conflicts with the agenda and priorities of the day. When this happens, they overlook the problem and hope it goes away, hope they got the ‘look’ when it happened, or hope they absorb the magnitude of a brief comment instead of making sure it was directly addressed so it won’t happen again.
Is it really just a problem of lack of communication?
Well, the business drivers have their strengths and weaknesses. Partnering with their Human Resources Professional will help mitigate those weaknesses. Where management is about driving the business, HR is always about protecting the business. HR has the direct communication at all levels and confirms appropriate documentation is recorded. Now, I know that the HR department is not management’s favorite. We are the ones who make them slow down when they have a sense of urgency. We are the ones who set those policies and procedures that are sometimes uncomfortable for them to follow. Typically, they don’t like to plan and they manage with their passions [for the business] often from the seat of their pants. I get it; their concentration includes sales, productivity, and actual performance. Instead of being proactive most times they wind up being reactive. However, being proactive is what’s key to doing the right thing by the employee as well as the company.
So what’s the course of action?
As an HR Professional and Professional Certified Coach, I believe there are five simple steps to improving the status quo. It’s time to be proactive and improve everyone’s understanding of expectations.
- Direct and open communication – When people know where they really stand, they are more motivated. There is no guess work, no down time of doubtful questions and therefore, they’re more productive. With more productive, motivated employees there is less reason to let them go. When employees are motivated and challenged, they strive to continue doing well. They’ll contribute and participate with more confidence and then everyone wins. Who wouldn’t want to be in an environment where an employee can go to their boss with just about anything and not be fearful of any type of retaliation? Who wouldn’t be open to constructive feedback when they know it’s in their best interest to develop and grow within the organization?
- Write authentic Performance Reviews – I’ve written several articles on this subject. I always go back to the number one step; direct and open communication. However, this communication must be truthful and genuine. There shouldn’t be any surprises during a review. It should be an accumulation of prior conversations had throughout the year. It should comment on improvements and still areas needing improvement. All too often, a manager goes through the motions of the performance appraisal process. They might communicate something, but quite often, it’s not really what should have been communicated. Review time is the perfect opportunity to document reality. This is an essential piece of documentation for every employee. It must be authentic.
- Written policies and procedures – When you have expectations that aren’t written, you may as well not have them at all. To quote a favorite employment attorney who I worked with for many years: “If it’s not documented, it never happened”. This goes for Performance Management, Employee Handbooks, Training Guidelines, Safety Instructions, you name it, it must be in writing. It may seem like a daunting task to get everything written, but there are many tools out there that simplify this task. Besides, there are also consultants like me that can provide what you need. Once you have the written policies the next task is to distribute to all employees. Then, they must acknowledge receipt of the Handbook with a sign off page to be filed in their file. On a side note regarding documentation (I’ll write more about this), always remember that what you document can and may be used for or against you in a court of law. If in doubt, check with HR.
- Organizational-Skills – Did you just roll your eyes? Business owners hate when I introduce this topic. They thrive on freedom, they want free flow, they don’t want compartments and they don’t want to spend their time organizing. However, there is so much wasted time when you’re unorganized. There is so much wasted time looking for that lost number, missing file or unlabeled document. That precious time could have been spent on much more productive activities. Getting organized is like anything else, the more you do it, the better you get at it.
- Time Management – This step is similar to Organization Skills. So at this point, I get the look like, yeah right, Janet! Usually because to be effective in Time Management, you should have some Organizational Skills. There are several steps in improving Time Management. It’s a whole other topic I often write about! But, it can be simplified by following Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix posted here. Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and First Things First .
Labeling your To Do list with these four different categories: Urgent, Important, Not Urgent and Not Important helps clarify what to do in what order to get the urgent and important things accomplished. Another tool to improve Time Management is the schedule/calendar. Some have made huge strides in this area when they’ve been disciplined in keeping their calendars. But it’s only successful with consistent use.
In my experiences, the more these five steps are taken, the less time is spent on terminations. Employees will now know when they’re doing something wrong. They’ll know if they choose to continue their unacceptable behavior, they will suffer consequences. When these conversations have been documented (acknowledged by both parties with signatures) clarification is verified. At that point, no one can say they didn’t know… They weren’t sure… They were never told… I know managers have heard these excuses many times. I’ve heard them too! These steps totally eliminate those ridiculous comments. They make it easy for the employee to make their choice; continue and suffer consequences, or leave on their own and resign their employment. I’ll share more about employee resignations, turnover and retention another time. So, when closing the coaching session this morning, the business owner felt a sense of relief. She was glad to know that she will be able to move forward with termination. She just has some work to do before she can do it. We worked on a plan of what needs to be accomplished with a timeframe to achieve the ultimate goal of terminating this thorn in her side employee!