NA - Terminating employees

Only folks I let go are temps (go through them like underwear to find one that even somewhat meets expectations) and contract folks that either don't perform or have safety issues.

The temps are easy: "don't need you back next week". And egregious safety violators are even easier: "you just did XYZ... You know I have to let you go".

Luckily I've avoided having to fire a true, honest to goodness full time direct report for anything. That would be tougher for sure.
 
I love it when they argue with you like that will change your mind. Then they go to your boss as if they are going to side with the guy performing so bad they are getting fired.

It sucks even when they deserve it. I had one guy use me as a reference for years after I fired him and told him if he did I would be honest about his performance. Still makes me sad to think about that.
 
...
wsuffa said:
Up In The Air.
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I had to shut down one our remote offices. Three really good people, way better at what we did than I was. But the new owner wanted it done and I figured I owed it to them to be the one to tell them. I was technically their supervisor and wrote up the best reference letters I could. And then I never heard from any of them since.

A buddy of mine ended up having to be the axe man and shut down several offices. When he got back, his boss told him, "I can get 2 new hires for the price of one of you." And just like that 20 yrs at his place ended.
 
If you think @SixPapaCharlie is a crappy boss you'll hate me.

I'm a firm believer in Hire Fast - Fire Fast. Typically I do lunch with a candidate and I know before I pay the check if I'm extending an offer.

Once hired, its basically the three strike rule. If I have to discuss "improvement areas" often they are separated from the company trough.

I've been called cut-throat... but c'mon... I have a Pomeranian and an airplane to support. I can't coddle consultants who don't cover their action.
 
I find it interesting how some of the responses and perspectives are very much tightly tied to if you are working in highly paid white collar industry or something more blue collar.

Tim
 
Employment is a mecantile arrangement - the organization isn't your "family", and it owes you nothing beyond the employment contract. They'll sacrifice you like a voodoo chicken, if it's expedient to do so. And that works both ways; in private industry I gave my employer my best effort, but would (and did) walk in a heartbeat, for a better oppurtunity.

Weirdest one, I was involved in firing a guy who wore too much cologne, and dressed like an unmade bed. Basically, fired for social ineptitude. And yeah, it's legal.

Flip side, I decided to "promote" myself and accept a better job. My boss was angry and offended, told me to leave immediatley, so I did. Started getting calls from co-workers in a day or so, looking for info/turnover on the project I was working on. I kinda wanted to help, human nature, etc. But didn't give in to temptation.
 
The loyalty thing is highly dependent on the boss. There are bosses for whom I’d give plenty of notice of my leaving so they could transition and I’d not leave him in a bind, and others whom I might wait until the day before their vacation to put in my 2 weeks. Been at this company for 20 years and my prior one for 6, but seen some good and some bad humans as my boss.

Have a gem of a human as one of my peers. His name is Max. In his past job he had to do a lot of continual downsizing due to industry consolidation. People liked him nonetheless. His employees called him Max the Axe (endearingly and to his face). To this day he’ll do as much as possible to keep from firing people.
 
Obviously it depends on the caliber of employee you are hiring. Assuming high caliber, I tend to think of someone getting fired as a management failure. Obviously the manager could not communicate expectations in a way that resonated with them OR could not connect their behavior to a consequence they cared about OR they were not a good fit and should never have been hired to begin with.

I will grant that an employee also has a duty to perform. If they are not performing, do you know why? A peer once fired an employee and then came into my office to commiserate because it IS the suckiest job in management. Maybe worse was having to tell my friend that the dude’s mother had cancer. I know he felt like a heel for a long time.

I have never fired someone where it was not the conclusion of a long process of discussing, giving feedback and helping them understand what the rules are and why they are important. I have also never had an employee leave without knowing about it way before it happened.

If you don’t know your people, how can you manage them?
 
Sundancer said:
Employment is a mecantile arrangement - the organization isn't your "family", and it owes you nothing beyond the employment contract. They'll sacrifice you like a voodoo chicken, if it's expedient to do so. And that works both ways; in private industry I gave my employer my best effort, but would (and did) walk in a heartbeat, for a better oppurtunity.

Weirdest one, I was involved in firing a guy who wore too much cologne, and dressed like an unmade bed. Basically, fired for social ineptitude. And yeah, it's legal.

Flip side, I decided to "promote" myself and accept a better job. My boss was angry and offended, told me to leave immediatley, so I did. Started getting calls from co-workers in a day or so, looking for info/turnover on the project I was working on. I kinda wanted to help, human nature, etc. But didn't give in to temptation.
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So you were unable to explain the effect of too much cologne and sloppy dress? That is like management 101, one of the easiest thing to address. I had to explain to one (American) kid that his body odor was offensive to others and because of that, nobody was coming by to tap his knowledge. He knew so much, but it was all wasted until he took a shower every day and used deodorant. That was what it took to motivate him.

When your boss let you go like that, it kinda sounds like he hires people a lot like him.
 
tspear said:
I find it interesting how some of the responses and perspectives are very much tightly tied to if you are working in highly paid white collar industry or something more blue collar.

Tim
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Ok but some of that is simply cause and effect. The higher up one is in an organization, the more people you’ve had to fire. Above a certain level, it’s pretty much impossible to have been fired much but you’ve had to fire some at least.
 
(every) Friday @ 5:00pm:

“You’re all fired as of now!

If you are interested in your position, we are taking applications Monday at 8:00am”
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
One colleague said he fired 10% of the staff (the low end) every couple of months ‘just to keep everyone on their toes’
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One of the guys I work with was a supervisor at GE. Jack Welch, their CEO at the time, had a similar philosophy.

My buddy said the first layoff was easy. The second year meant losing some good people. The third year was brutal. A lot of older employees that just couldn't keep the same pace as the younger ones coming in, and were the age where they were unhirable but not close enough to afford retirement, were let go. It was pretty bitter for those folks and the bosses that had to make the choices.

That knd of thing only works if you continue to hire replacements.
 
Matthew said:
...

A buddy of mine ended up having to be the axe man and shut down several offices. When he got back, his boss told him, "I can get 2 new hires for the price of one of you." And just like that 20 yrs at his place ended.
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Age discrimination is still rampant, even if it's hidden with code words like "I want to pay less money for a new hire". Sometimes it's said blatantly with the understanding that if you pursue it then you will not work in the area again.

Was discussing this with a guy who is CFO of a company that's being sold.
 
Matthew said:
One of the guys I work with was a supervisor at GE. Jack Welch, their CEO at the time, had a similar philosophy.

My buddy said the first layoff was easy. The second year meant losing some good people. The third year was brutal. A lot of older employees that just couldn't keep the same pace as the younger ones coming in, and were the age where they were unhirable but not close enough to afford retirement, were let go. It was pretty bitter for those folks and the bosses that had to make the choices.

That knd of thing only works if you continue to hire replacements.
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People misunderstand or don't know how Welch operated. Including someone I worked for who cut 10% of the staff each year.

Welch's philosophy was indeed to cut about 10% of the lowest performers each year.... But it was coupled with big rewards for the top 10%. A lot of managers/owners focus on the "cuts" part and completely ignore the "reward" part. Welch's idea was a carrot and stick.
 
bflynn said:
So you were unable to explain the effect of too much cologne and sloppy dress? That is like management 101, one of the easiest thing to address. I had to explain to one (American) kid that his body odor was offensive to others and because of that, nobody was coming by to tap his knowledge. He knew so much, but it was all wasted until he took a shower every day and used deodorant. That was what it took to motivate him.

When your boss let you go like that, it kinda sounds like he hires people a lot like him.
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We put a minimal effort into it - but to be that oblivious, that lacking in self-awareness. . .the smell and the appearance were the overt indicators - with issues like those, the person is usually "missing" in other areas as well. This wasn't a kid, or a grunt worker - the job required initiative, social skills, a good degree of self direction.
 
wsuffa said:
People misunderstand or don't know how Welch operated. Including someone I worked for who cut 10% of the staff each year.

Welch's philosophy was indeed to cut about 10% of the lowest performers each year.... But it was coupled with big rewards for the top 10%. A lot of managers/owners focus on the "cuts" part and completely ignore the "reward" part. Welch's idea was a carrot and stick.
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I only know his side of it.

Still, he saiy that third round was brutal. For those in the middle - not lowest 10% and not top 10% - it had to be tough.
 
Matthew said:
I only know his side of it.

Still, he saiy that third round was brutal. For those in the middle - not lowest 10% and not top 10% - it had to be tough.
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Yep. That works for one or two rounds. After that it becomes very tough to hire top talent, especially mid-career top talent, as they won't join an organization that does that sort of crap.

I've had to release employees over the years. One was a guy who was ducking out every afternoon to hit a local bar, and that one was easy. A year or so later he actually listed me as a reference on an application for a security clearance. Either he had some serious gall or he was drunk again...

Much harder was laying off folks who were solid performers but were either low on seniority or we just didn't need their particular specialty any longer. At least in those situations we were providing out-placement services to help them find new gigs.
 
Sundancer said:
We put a minimal effort into it - but to be that oblivious, that lacking in self-awareness. . .the smell and the appearance were the overt indicators - with issues like those, the person is usually "missing" in other areas as well. This wasn't a kid, or a grunt worker - the job required initiative, social skills, a good degree of self direction.
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So you cut your losses and turned this guy out to repeat his problems elsewhere. Didn’t his manager have a responsibility to help him? Obviously he had skills you wanted, but nobody could figure out how to talk with him about basic social things?

It is such a simple thing to do. We have a crisis of personnel management in the US.
 
Sometimes you end up with a person who interviewed well,but just doesn’t have it when it comes to the position.
 
frfly172 said:
Sometimes you end up with a person who interviewed well,but just doesn’t have it when it comes to the position.
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Or was hired by a previous manager. I had to let someone go in this situation recently. Was high on my priority list to let them go when I took over the team but it was still hard. Was the bottom performer on my team by far and to make it worse was suprised he was let go. I had been working with him as a superior but not manager with firing ability for over a year trying to get him to follow rules/protocols/best practices / etc and he barely improved.
 
wsuffa said:
People misunderstand or don't know how Welch operated. Including someone I worked for who cut 10% of the staff each year.

Welch's philosophy was indeed to cut about 10% of the lowest performers each year.... But it was coupled with big rewards for the top 10%. A lot of managers/owners focus on the "cuts" part and completely ignore the "reward" part. Welch's idea was a carrot and stick.
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So what if the carrot part worked for everybody? Would he still fire the bottom 10% and ignore the other 80%, all of whom were helping the company grow?
 
wsuffa said:
Age discrimination is still rampant, even if it's hidden with code words like "I want to pay less money for a new hire". Sometimes it's said blatantly with the understanding that if you pursue it then you will not work in the area again.

Was discussing this with a guy who is CFO of a company that's being sold.
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Sometimes a narcissistic manager can invent reasons to get rid of the best performers because they are a threat to him. Someone like this can wreak havoc on a company and turn a nice workplace into a hellhole.
 
Rushie said:
Sometimes a narcissistic manager can invent reasons to get rid of the best performers because they are a threat to him. Someone like this can wreak havoc on a company and turn a nice workplace into a hellhole.
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Wow... you just described most places I worked at in Alaska. Except the managers were not specifically narcissistic. They were just not qualified for the position they were in, and the better qualified people were a threat to them.
 
bflynn said:
So you cut your losses and turned this guy out to repeat his problems elsewhere. Didn’t his manager have a responsibility to help him? Obviously he had skills you wanted, but nobody could figure out how to talk with him about basic social things?

It is such a simple thing to do. We have a crisis of personnel management in the US.
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Exactly - we weren't a finishing school; and "elsewhere"' as in his next job? We were neither a charity nor a humanitarian organization. Hopefully he reflected on what happened, grew from it, and went on to success. Or not.

His manager had a responsibilty to the organization, and the departed's skills were not sufficient to offset the negatives. I think "crisis" is over the top, over used. Orgs that manage people well will do better than those that don't, all else being equal. Eventually, self correcting.
 
I feel like you didn’t hear me. Fixing that should have been a 10 minute conversation for a good leader. I am on an iPad or I would show you how easy it is. If the direct manager couldn’t do that, there is an additional defect in the manager that needs to be coached.

If you do not believe in coaching people, I suggest you fix that quickly. As you say, self correcting.

But more, you don’t care about the people.
 
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Paulie said:
People that find firing people amusing aren't funny, they're jerks. Nothing humorous about it.
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He wasn't joking about firing people. He was joking about bosses who are jerks.
 
Do what DJT does - get someone else to do it; or let the firee find out about it on the news.
Bosses who are jerks, indeed
 
wrbix said:
Do what DJT does - get someone else to do it; or let the firee find out about it on the news.
Bosses who are jerks, indeed
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The Dow Jones Transportation average? That doesn't even make sense.:fingerwag:
 
bflynn said:
I feel like you didn’t hear me. Fixing that should have been a 10 minute conversation for a good leader. I am on an iPad or I would show you how easy it is. If the direct manager couldn’t do that, there is an additional defect in the manager that needs to be coached.

If you do not believe in coaching people, I suggest you fix that quickly. As you say, self correcting.

But more, you don’t care about the people.
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Heck, it should have been a one minute conversation, which it was:
"Pete, you smell like a Saigon whorehouse, and you slept in your clothes - you gotta fix that"
Pete doesn't fix it.
"Pete, you gotta go"

Clearly, we made the issue known to him before firing him. We didn't feel an obligation to keep pursuing it, and as I said, his lack of self-awareness went beyond personal appearance - that was just the most glaring issue. Was he salvageable? You may be correct, he may have been - we had neither the time nor moral imperative to try. It was more expedient and efficient to replace him - we didn't have him executed, or brand an "A" on his forehead - we just severed a business relationship.

We might be talking past each other? Or we might just disagree on the duty owed, between employee and employer.
 
Sundancer said:
We might be talking past each other? Or we might just disagree on the duty owed, between employee and employer.
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You two might also be talking different businesses and situations and types of employees.

If I were facing this with a 6-figure engineer who is a specialist at designing conformal antennas for low-observable airframes, you bet I'll spend whatever time is needed with coaching and counseling. He is extremely valuable and very difficult to replace.

OTOH, if I'm managing a Burger King and this is a minimum-wage counter employee who is offending customers, he might get that 1-minute conversation. Then again he might not. I can replace him in about ten minutes. If I feel a moral obligation to help him, I'll have a discussion with him when I terminate him so maybe he can do better on his next job, but I won't continue offending customers or my other employees while hoping he improves.
 
TipTanks said:
I have fired around 30 people. (Former Manager of Ground Operations at an airline...needless to say high turnover and some real winners). It is never fun, but it does get easier. It is just business, and I am a firm believer in coaching and performance management. If the supervisors and or myself worked with the employee to improve, and they still don't respond, it should be no shock that they are fired. I always put the ball in their court. Think about it... They have the choice whether they want to succeed. And if they are just not a fit and the job just isn't for them they typically realize that after anyways. I have had some nasty ones though, when dealing with unstable people. It is never fun, and I do not miss that part of my old job.
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I've been an HR guy for most of my career, and I couldn't have said it better.

BTW, I'm not one of THOSE HR guys. I abhor most HR people I've ever worked with.
 
Sundancer said:
Heck, it should have been a one minute conversation, which it was:
"Pete, you smell like a Saigon whorehouse, and you slept in your clothes - you gotta fix that"
Pete doesn't fix it.
"Pete, you gotta go"
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As I said...crisis of management in the US. From what I've read here, it looks to me like your duty to fix it is to yourself because failing to fix it make you look bad and it wastes your time. You spent a lot more than 10 minutes fixing the results of the failing to do this well. I feel differently, I believe a manager has a duty to the people who work for him. In management terms, we're on opposite ends of the spectrum, but it doesn't change that it's important to manage your people effectively.

I don't know Pete, so I don't what words would worked, but obviously these weren't it. What is critical to change the future is to identify the behavior, identify the impact that the behavior has on a positive work environment and then get a commitment from the person to own and change the behavior in the future. And you have to explain it in ways that they care about.

For example if I was talking to you about this issue, I might say "SD, man, there's a problem. Your clothes are sloppy and you have intense body odor. Nobody wants to be around you because you stink and it is impacting your ability to be successful and advance here. This cannot continue. This is your problem, what are you going to do to fix it?" That sounds harsh to a lot of people here, but I'll bet not at all to you...in fact it probably sounds a bit tame. But it's there - the specific issue, the impact explained in a way I think you care about and then asking you to own the problem and fix it.

If you had a different personality, I would have explained it using different words - say if you were the classic laboratory scientist, then I might say that the odor and sloppy clothing makes people question your professional competency and the quality of your work. Nobody sees all the great work being done because it is eclipsed by the social blunders. Same message...very different words to account for a different motivation. I would bet this version doesn't have any impact on you at all, but there are some out there who read this and reacted very strongly.

Bottom line, you were ineffective, you failed to correct the behavior and therefore you had to waste your time firing the guy and then waste more time hiring his replacement. Take, it don't take it, but it's all on you.

Crisis of management.
 
bflynn said:
If you do not believe in coaching people, I suggest you fix that quickly.
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I’m going to speak in generalities here.

Coaching is about the future; feedback is about the past.

Feedback can be directed positive, neutral, or negative behaviors. Once feedback is given, coaching can begin to improve upon the behavior.

It can be appropriate in some circumstances that termination is the feedback.

You mentioned a crisis in management today. I’m not so sure I believe that. What I’ve seen is the responsibilities for front line supervisors and managers don’t line up with the development of those supervisors and managers.

When the company is hiring new supervisors and managers, they are looking for the right fit in the interview and assume the new hire possesses the necessary skills without having done anything to prepare them.

I firmly believe the toughest transition in corporate life today is the transition from individual contributor to being responsible for others, simply because most companies do very little to actually develop and guide new managers/supervisors.
 
TCABM said:
I firmly believe the toughest transition in corporate life today is the transition from individual contributor to being responsible for others, simply because most companies do very little to actually develop and guide new managers/supervisors.
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I agree with this wholeheartedly, and my company does do a ton of stuff to develop new managers. In fact, I teach several classes myself, and provide coaching and mentoring. Even so, getting a talented person to let go and delegate work they used to do themselves is tough, and teaching them to coach and train their subordinates and not micromanage them is a challenge.
 
bflynn said:
Bottom line, you were ineffective, you failed to correct the behavior and therefore you had to waste your time firing the guy and then waste more time hiring his replacement. Take, it don't take it, but it's all on you.

Crisis of management.
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Disagree. It’s not all on the manager. Some people refuse to be managed, and the door is the best place for them. One loudmouth with a bad attitude can disrupt a workforce. I’ve seen it.
 
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