Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to this morning's presentation of Best Practices for Employee Termination. I am your leader this morning. My name is Carla Dabic. My company's name is Human Resource Techniques, and we are the endorsed service provider for AED, all things HR-related. So let's go ahead and get started, and we're going to get started with a story. I'm going to ask you where problems might be in this story. Last year, you purchased new equipment to help automate your ability to create drawings in the hopes that you would be able to provide more timely and accurate completions of work. Pablo, a 67-year-old drafter, has been with you for many years. Although you have suggested that he take time off and attend classes to learn more about the new equipment and its capabilities, Pablo has been slow to change. He always seems to find excuses for not attending classes and prefers to produce paper prints only. Since he is older and has developed some back problems, you have been very careful to cut him some slack. When reviewing his file, you notice that he has always received adequate ratings on his performance appraisals, although there's only been one in the past five years, and there's nothing to indicate that his skills might need to improve. Steve, a 24-year-old who recently completed his associate's degree, has been Pablo's salvation. Even though his primary responsibilities have been in materials management, he has been the go-to guy for Pablo. His combination of knowledge and skills have led to many innovative changes in design. If Steve took on additional responsibilities in the tool room, you could terminate Pablo and cut overhead tremendously. Finally, you decide to terminate Pablo and promote Steve into a newly created position called drafting technician. You'll tell Pablo it's time to retire, and that way he won't feel bad about his performance. So I'm sure that many of you can see some problems in here. And although paperwork right here, only one in the past five years is one of them, there are a few other ones. First of all, the gentleman who's being terminated, his name is Pablo, which seems to indicate he may be of Hispanic descent. He's also 67 years old, and he has back problems. So there are lots of places that you could get in trouble if you decide to terminate Pablo and promote Steve into this newly created position. You might be thinking, yeah, but you know what? It's at-will employment. Employers have rights. They can terminate people whenever they want, without notice, without cause. There's no documentation needed, and there's no fault. Well, that's true. If you're called on proving that your decision had nothing to do with any of those protected categories, then yes, you could apply at-will. Title VII, though, says that employees also have rights. And if there was a cause that the termination was due to a cause that was protected, then there might be a lawsuit. And that's why documentation is so critical. That's probably the first thing you need to know when thinking about terminating, is that you have to have documentation in place. All these different categories of people are protected. And it's not only that this is protected, but again, also retaliation. If you terminate because somebody retaliated against you, or you're retaliating against them for filing a suit against you, that's also protected. So the list of protections goes on and on and on. If you look at this list, you'll realize that there are very few people who are not protected in one way or another from discrimination when it comes to termination. So what are the protection methods you should have in place? Well, there are many of them. There are policies. There are forms. There's discipline. There's suspending. There's documentation. And there's uniform treatment. So let's talk about each of these individually. Policies. You should have a handbook. If you don't have a handbook, we strongly suggest that you do. It's a great guide and a great roadmap for your employees, your supervisors, and also the business owners who might forget what they say from one year to the next because they have other things on their mind when it comes to different topics. If you have a handbook, there are certain things that you have to include in it. Unless your company is 100% union, you need to have an at-will statement in there saying that the handbook is not a document that is a legal contract, that it is there for guidelines and it is there to inform employees, but it's not a contract for employment. That at-will language should be in your handbook in at least three places. Typically, we like to add it as a standalone statement. We then like to add it to a policy that might talk about different types of termination. And then we also like to include it on the acknowledgement page so it's in that handbook in at least three places. You should also have an EEO statement and a harassment, discrimination, sexual harassment policy. Those are separate policies. The EEO statement says that you as a company have determined and decided that you will not discriminate based on any of those protected categories. The harassment and discrimination statement and sexual harassment statement says that employees are prohibited from harassing or discriminating against others. And both of those policies have retaliation statements in there saying that employees can't retaliate and the company won't retaliate. You should also have an immigration statement in your handbook. And this statement would say that if you find out during the employment relationship that the employee is not legally authorized to work in the United States that that calls for automatic termination. You should have a workplace violence policy in your handbook. And unfortunately, last year OSHA decided that every workplace violence policy should include language on active shooter response. We have that language available. If you don't like it, you're welcome to get a hold of us and we'll send you that language. And finally, timekeeping practices. How employees are supposed to keep time and also the fact that they're going to be paid according to the time that they turn in. And if there's a problem with their pay that they should be letting you know so that you can correct it. Beyond the policies that are required to be in your handbook, companies also have policies. And these are the ones that really come into play when you're looking at finding valid reasons to terminate someone. It might be attendance. How is your attendance policy work? Is it a points policy? We don't recommend those. Or at what point after no call, no show, is there an automatic termination? When is a doctor's note required? And of course, it's not because you don't believe the employee, but you want to make sure that they're healthy enough to come back to work and that they're healthy enough that they're not going to make anyone else sick. They're not contagious. You want a safety policy. Personal protective equipment, housekeeping, those types of policies so that you can hold your employee's feet to the fire in making sure they're following your rules. There's a company in Jasper, Indiana. It's called Jasper Engines and Transmissions. And in their safety policy, they say that employees are required to wear their safety glasses every day. And if an employee shows up for work without safety glasses one time or they see an employee out on the floor without safety glasses one time, they will write that employee up. And if it happens again, the employee is fired. And I'll tell you what, everybody at Jasper Engines and Transmissions wears their safety glasses because they have put a policy in place and they stick to it and they hold employees accountable. Another policy that employers like to include is a dress code. It might be for safety purposes, keeping their arms and legs covered. It might be you don't want them to have language that might be inflammatory to customers or the public. So that's another good policy to have in place. Many companies have a solicitation policy in place saying that employees, if they have Girl Scout cookies to sell or something like that, that they will leave those in the lunchroom and people can sign up. But they certainly don't allow people to go from workstation to workstation and solicit. Company property and time. Are your employees allowed to use company property? Do they have to get permission first? Can they take it off of the premises? And also time. What is considered work time and what is considered off time? Cell phone use certainly comes into that area, especially these days. If employees are on their cell phones all day and you're paying them to work, you're paying them for doing personal business. And so some companies prohibit that. Also computer use. Same thing. If they're on the computer shopping at Amazon or looking at sports pages or reading Google, then they're certainly not being productive. And then any additional workplace expectations you may have. These should all be in your handbook and you should be very familiar with what all of those policies say. Once again, these are some of the protection methods. Employment forms are another big area where employees can find fodder for termination. The application form. Typically a lot of companies will say, well, I don't make new people fill out an application because I have their resume. But a resume is not a document that the employee is stating that everything is truthful. An application form on the back, they're signing that everything that they've written on that application is truthful. And you really want to get that signature. There are companies that after several years can terminate someone if they lied on their application. Reference checks so that you're getting information from those previous employers. And you might be thinking, boy, nobody ever answered me so I don't bother doing that. We have a great way of getting information. It's called an email back form where the former employer, the former employee writes information and the former employer, all they need to do is either agree or disagree with the statement. When we send those out, if we send out five, we usually get back three. It's a great form. If you want it, I'll be happy to send it to you. No charge. Just email me and let me know. Also, any other acknowledgements that they've signed, whether it be the handbook acknowledgement or acknowledgement for receipt of company property or non-disclosure or non-compete, any of those types of acknowledgements are important forms to have. When it comes to attendance, leave requests, if they ask for time off, is the time off protected under ADA or is it protected under FMLA? Knowing that up front can prevent you from terminating somebody for attendance when it was a protected leave. It's very important to have those forms. Any inappropriate conduct, whether it be workplace bullying, harassment, discrimination, just improper behavior so that you're documenting that and if someone needs to know why you terminated, you have a document to say, here, this is what happened and we decided that termination was the best course of action. We like weekly logs because typically if you're sitting down with an employee to talk about their performance, you're only going to remember what's happened in the last few weeks. If you use a log and you update it every week and you don't have to update it with tons of information, but just a few little clarifying things like Sally was late or Mary helped out in the shipping department, we'll give you all kinds of information you need later to sit down and prove your case for a termination. Also, warnings. I want to talk just for a second about warnings. My first job in human resources was a company in Algonquin, Illinois. I was hired as their HR manager. I had no background in HR. In fact, it was actually payroll back then. I had absolutely no idea what to do. We got an unemployment claim. I opened up the employee's file and he had 12 final warnings. I thought, wow, slam dunk. The company has to win this. This guy had 12 final warnings. But we lost. We lost because nothing was any different on any of those final warnings. Why would the employee have believed that the 12th final warning meant he was going to be terminated when the first 11 didn't? If you're thinking about a termination, please don't mark that warning final warning until you're ready to pull the trigger and terminate the employee. If you do, you're setting yourself up for problems later on. Then, of course, the other item here is severance agreements. We all know what severance agreements are. That's an agreement where the employee gets money they're not entitled to, and in return they agree not to sue the company. That's a legal document that needs to be written by an attorney. There's a certain language that has to be included, and if it does end up in court, and very frequently they do, it's important that the attorney wrote it so he or she can defend whatever it is that they've put in that document. By the way, if anybody has any questions, you're absolutely welcome to send me a chat message, and I'll take that up. When you're thinking about termination, the very best thing you can do is have a progressive, disciplinary practice in place. Of course, there's always going to be an exception to the rule, and there are always going to be when termination is the first step. Typically, if you can show that you have taken steps to fix the problem, and that the employee knew that if they didn't fix the problem, the consequences were termination, you are setting the stage to be able to prove that you did not discriminate, that you did have an employee with a problem, you tried to correct it, they knew they were going to get terminated, they didn't correct it, and you terminated them. That's a much better place to be in than using words, because I'll tell you something about those government agencies. They're not courts of law. Those government agencies are government agencies. They're kind of like the IRS. The IRS, of course, if they say that you owe more taxes than you paid, you don't say to them, prove it. They say to you, prove to us that we're wrong. Well, the EEOC and any of the state agencies, the Department of Labor, OSHA, all of those are government agencies. When an employee goes in and makes a complaint, they come to you and say, this is what the employee said. You need to prove to us that what they're telling us is not true. They will not take your word over the employee's word. The employee's word is always used above the company's verbal word. That's why documentation is so incredibly important. So when you do use progressive discipline, you want to make sure that you meet in private. You don't want to walk out into the job site or out into the office and have a conversation with the employee about bad behaviors. And by the way, discipline should be used for behaviors. Coaching should be used for performance issues. But that's a whole different conversation. So you want to meet in private and you want to assure the employee that the conversation you're having is confidential between you and the employee. If this is a first meeting, call an initial meeting if you're going to document it. Don't call it verbal and then document because you're sending a mixed message. If it's just a verbal conversation, that's great. Make a note in your log that you had a conversation with Sally about her attendance. Once it gets to the stage where you're going to write something down, it shouldn't be called verbal anymore. You want to be able to give the employee enough information so that they agree with what you're saying. Usually when a boss comes to us or a manager comes to us and says, you know, you're not doing this right or, you know, you have to do something differently, until they understand where you're coming from, they might not agree with you. So let's say it's an attendance issue. Show them their attendance record and then show them the company policy and show them where the discrepancy is. Once they understand there's a discrepancy, get them to agree to change. And if they can't change, let them know what the consequences are. Is it going to be another warning? Is it going to be a suspension? Is it going to be termination? Let them know what the next step is. Documentation. We talked a little bit about that. So verbal, you're documenting it in a log. Initial, you're putting some writing in place. If it's a verbal conversation and you really want to reinforce it with the employee, send them an email saying, you know what, thank you, Sally, for coming in this morning and speaking with me. I'm so happy we had this talk and I'm sure we're now on the same page. And then spell out what you said. You agreed to do this. You know that if this doesn't happen, these are going to be the consequences. So that you have some documentation that it occurred, but it's not that written warning that's going in their file. Also let them know what, when, and how. The next conversation, if there's any follow-up, needs to occur. When that's going to be, what it's going to be, and how that's going to take place. If there's something that you're monitoring to see if it's going to get better, let them know what the measurement is. Let them know when you're going to measure and what improvement you expect to see. And then also be smart. And smart is specific, measurable, action-oriented, reasonable, and also time-sensitive. One of the best things to do, especially if you are not the final decision maker for a termination, is to suspend. Many times, as a supervisor or a manager, we want to terminate on the spot. And it's typically better to have one person do that, and we'll talk about that a little bit later in this presentation, and why. But as a manager or a supervisor, what you can say is, you know what, Sally? You need to punch out for the day. You need to clock out and go home for the day. I need to take a look at this situation. I need to figure out what to do. And give me a call in the morning, or give me a call in a couple days, and we'll take it from there. When you do that, your first goal of getting the employee out of your face and away from you is met. Then you have the ability to take a deep breath, settle down, because sometimes, you know, emotions are a little high. You can collect evidence. You can start documenting. You can talk to other people. You can figure out what's going on. You can gather facts, and then look at, am I singling this person out? Am I treating this person differently? Or is this what should happen in the event that this situation took place? Should I be thinking about a termination, or should I be thinking about a warning, or should I be thinking about something else? Then you can make a decision, and if you still can't make a decision, you can get help from someone else, whether it's the president of a company. You can call us. You can call an attorney. But you can, you know, bounce your idea and what you're thinking off someone else before you make that final action of termination. Last chance agreements and decision-making leaves. I really like these documents. I will send either of these to anybody who would like them. And basically, both of these things sound something like this. Mary, we've had conversations with you on this date, this date, this date, and this date regarding your attendance. Because this is a really important matter, we want to make sure that you understand that this is the very last step of our disciplinary process before we terminate. So if you want to quit, you're welcome to quit. If you want to continue to work for us, you'll continue to work for us. And at the same time, you will immediately improve this behavior. You will work to the best of your ability. You will not cause problems for other people. We will not have any other disciplinary issues. Because if we do, you're done. We're done with our disciplinary practice and we're moving directly into termination. That's the last chance agreement. The other, the decision-making leave, let's say it's a dress code violation. Because I don't like to give people time off who have an attendance problem. That's kind of counterproductive. So let's say it's a dress code violation. And so it would sound something like this. Mary, we've talked about your dressing for work inappropriately several times. And to show you just how significant this matter is, we're giving you a decision-making leave. It's not a suspension. We're just giving you some time off. And while you're off, you need to make a decision. Do you want to work here or do you want to leave and do you want to work somewhere else? If you decide to work here, you're going to continue to work here with the understanding that you need to follow our company rules. Because this is the last stage of our disciplinary process and the next step is termination. The employee might go home and say, you know what? I don't want to work here anymore. Or they might go home and say, wow, they're really serious. I really need to clean up my act. These forms were developed by a gentleman by the name of Dick Grody. There's a wonderful book. It's called Discipline Without Punishment. If you want a fun read and an easy read, I suggest you pick up the book. It's the story of Frito-Lay and how he made changes at Frito-Lay to empower employees. This is just a very small section of that book, but it's a wonderful story about some things that were happening at Frito-Lay and the steps Dick took to change those things around. What these forms do is they absolutely clarify that there's a problem. It puts the decision to stay or go in the employee's hands. You're basically saying we've done all we can. It's out of our hands now. If you want to stay, these are our rules. Every company has rules. If you don't like our rules, go find a company where you like rules. That's fine. We have no problem with that. The way you're behaving here anymore, it isn't going to happen. It's kind of like if they're playing a game and they have a third warning on safety and a third warning on dress code and a third warning on cell phone use, it takes all that away because they say no more infractions of any kind because our next step is automatic termination. Good forms to have. Again, we'll be happy to send them to anybody who would like to have them. Documenting attitude. If you go to the unemployment office or if the EEOC calls you or one of the state agencies and you use the word attitude, it's very ambiguous to them. They don't like that word, and typically they don't accept that word. What they want you to do is document what that bad attitude looks like because everybody has a different definition of bad attitude. It might be the employee had their hands on their hips, was sighing, was rolling their eyes, whatever the policy infraction was. Was it insubordination? Was it dress code? Was it cleanliness? Was it attendance? What did the employee do? Did they slam their hands down? Did they stomp out of the room? Did they slam a door? Did they shout? Were they throwing things? So when you're documenting attitude problems, using the word bad attitude doesn't work. You need to document what actions and what behaviors they were showing and how that impacted your policy. I've had calls over the years from guys, and they'll say, I've got an employee, I want to fire him, he's got a terrible attitude. And I'll say, well, if he's got a bad attitude, why did you hire him? Well, he didn't have a bad attitude when I hired him. Well, then what happened over the employment relationship for him to get a bad attitude? You know, there always has to be an underlying cause, so you want to tie that back to the policy. Figure out what it is, what it is that that employee doesn't like, and why that employee is acting out. So problem employees. We have the poor performer, we have the loudest complainer, and we have the troublemaker. We've all seen those people. Well, you want to think about job change, demotion, and termination. If you change jobs or demote the loudest complainer or the troublemaker, the problem is still there. If you have demoted the troublemaker, then humiliation sets in. Right now, not only is he still there, but now he's very angry with you because you've humiliated him in front of all of his friends that he's had for 20 years or for five years or for two years. He's gotten demoted, and yet he's still there every day. So every day he gets more and more angry. And what that means is he's spreading bad, bad, bad words, bad vibes, bad rumors, just bad thoughts about the company. And anymore with the Internet, he's not just spreading them to the people he works with. He's probably on social media ranting and raving about what a horrible place it is to work, how terrible you are, how it's a bad company. And so future employees are seeing that. Your customers are seeing that. Your vendors are seeing that. If you've never gone to Glassdoor, go to Glassdoor and look up your company. Employees can rant and rave about their employers there all they want. So it says glassdoor.com, good place to be. And usually when someone is angry because they've been demoted or there's been a job change, they will look for ways to get even with the company. Well, getting even could be a number of things. It could be falling down at work, so now you have a work comp case. Or it could be looking for different ways to sue you. Or it could be slowing down the work, becoming a bottleneck. Or it could be sabotaging some equipment. So there's lots of ways employees can retaliate against employers. If you decide to terminate the loudest complainer or the bad apple, the problem is gone. Even if that person wasn't in a formal leadership position in the company, that person was probably in an informal leadership position. So others take notice. Oh, okay, if that happened to him, it might happen to me. And those good employees, they're probably so grateful that person's gone, they've had to listen to him rant and rave and they just didn't want to come to work and hear that anymore. So they're happy that that person's gone. And you'll see productivity increase. Now let's talk about the poor performer. The poor performer, that person might be up for a job change, never a demotion, don't ever demote, but a job change, a lateral change into a position, it has just as much status, just as much responsibility, it's not going to be something that will be frowned upon or looked down on by other people, but it might give that good person who just needs a little more time to develop their skills the ability to do just that, the ability to develop their skills. And I talked earlier about the importance of having one person, just one person, make that final decision when it comes to termination. If you delegate the responsibility to many people, there are some times that terminations are done in the heat of the moment. There's no continuity from one department to another department and that can get the company in a lot of trouble. If two managers are handling the same basic situation differently, one person gets a slap on the hand, one person gets terminated, and the person who is terminated is in a protected class, it can be big trouble for the company. So you want to make sure that only one person makes that final decision. They have the ability to look at every other termination that's occurred in the company, all the different departments, all the different managers, and when they see a similar situation, they can say, yes, this is the appropriate action, or no, this is not the appropriate action. So is the termination fitting? It could be personality. When you delegate it to many, some managers don't get along with people, other managers do. I can remember when my husband was working, he's retired now, there was one guy that nobody in that whole company could work with and he and my husband worked together like perfect. It's a personality thing. So it's really important to figure out, with one person looking at everything, they can look at things very objectively and no subjectivity comes into the decision-making process at all. There's a company here in northern Illinois, it's called Sage Products, and many years ago their HR manager there, and I thought this was very interesting too, they had about 480 employees, and what she did, she put together a peer group of employees, and if they had someone, they were on the bubble, should we terminate this person or not? They would call a meeting of that peer group and it would never be with people from the same department, so it wouldn't be anybody that somebody could identify by what was going on, and they just lay out the facts, these are the things that happened, and here's their activities up until now, so they have warnings on here, here, and here, is this a terminable offense, if it was something that was on the bubble? And not that that peer group would have the final say, but that was just another layer of protection that the company took, so if they did get sued, they could see even our peer group agreed that this employee should be terminated, just another layer of protection that they had in place. So let's talk a little bit about fair and equal. Some people think that everything has to be equal across the board, that's where attendance points policies come in place, everybody's treated exactly the same, and the company uses terms like, the company will do this, the company will do that, FEAR says something a little differently, it looks at the entire employment relationship, it says the company may do this, the company may do that, it allows for some flexibility, and when we write employee handbooks, we try and allow flexibility for the employer, we'll say things like, typically, generally, once you say you're going to do something, if you don't do that thing, then the employee can come back and say, well you don't do the things you're supposed to do, why do we have to do the things we're supposed to do? But the courts will generally approve FAIR, and let me give you an example. If you have two employees, John has been with the company for six months, and in that six months, he's missed five days. Juan has been with the company for 25 years, he's had great attendance, never missing more than a day or two in a year, until this year, this year he lost his spouse, and he's used up all of his FMLA while she was sick, he's used up all of his grieving time, he's used up all of his PTO, and now he's missed about eight days. People would say, you have to treat both of those individuals the same. FAIR would say, you know what, Juan's been with us 22 years, he's hit a bump in the road, and we're going to give him some leeway. The courts will generally approve of something like that. It's not equal, but it certainly is FAIR. Let's talk a little bit about termination due to lack of work versus layoff. We had this question come up many, many times back in 2008 and 2009, when the economy took a dive and many people were losing their jobs. Companies wanting to be kind to their employees would say, you're going to be laid off. What that did, though, was give the employee the false hope that they were coming back. They didn't get on with their lives, they didn't go look for new work, they just waited for that call back. And then they started calling in to find out when they were coming back. So if it's a layoff, let the employee know when a recall is expected, and if they don't have a recall by that time, then it's a termination due to lack of work. If you know that there is no chance that employee's coming back, don't call it a layoff. Call it a termination due to lack of work. It's the same for unemployment, it's not going to change at all, and they're going to get the same benefits. It's just a kinder way of letting the employee know not to expect a call back, and you wish them the best luck in the future. Make sure that the employee knows on what criteria the decision was based. Last in, first out for a termination due to lack of work or a layoff is always best. But that's not always in the best interest of the company. So let the employee know, is it based on, you know, that was one of the factors, but it was also based on attendance, it was also based on their understanding of certain equipment or certain systems. Let them know how that decision was made, so they're not thinking it must be because I'm in some protected class. Now let's talk about termination preparation. What company property needs to be returned? Is it files, is it lists, is it electronics? Let me talk a little bit about a company that I work with in Wooddale, Illinois, and they had a gal resign, and I just want to set this up for you so that you understand the importance of keeping your files and lists private. When she resigned, after she left, the owner of the company thought, I want to see what she was doing on email for the last few days. So he went in and realized she had tried to take their estimating program that they had written, she had tried to send that to her home email, but it was too big. The file was too big, it couldn't, her home server couldn't accept it. So she sent it to her daughter who worked for McDonald's in Oakbrook, Illinois, you know, big combination, McDonald's, and so she sent it to her daughter. When the McDonald's system was big enough to accept it, her daughter put it on a flash drive and took it home to her mom. That was on Memorial Day weekend several years ago, and by that Tuesday, the owner of the company that had that information stolen had gotten injunctions against the employee, the former employee, the former employee's daughter, McDonald's, and her new employer. And every one of those companies were served. That woman did not get the job with the new company, they said, we don't hire thieves, and she lost her new job over that. Make sure that you're doing what you can to protect company property before the termination process. That was just a little signed note I wanted to share. Another thing you need to think about is reassigning work to others. When this person leaves, you need to have your ducks in a row. Who's going to do what? Are they capable of doing it? How is the job going to be split up? Are you bringing a temp in? Is it just reassignment of duties? But how is that going to look? Because you don't want to be left in a position where you really want this person out today, but you haven't done this prep work. Then the other thing you want to talk about and think about is what are you going to say to their coworkers? What are you going to say to any customers with whom they have contact or vendors with whom they work? How are you going to communicate that this termination has occurred? You want to think about whether or not you're going to give this person a letter of reference. Even if it's an employee who struggled in certain areas, you can always talk about the things that they did well. Sometimes that letter of reference, it's not that they're a bad person, it's just that they're just not up to the job anymore, well then talk about what they did right. Even though the job for them has ended with you, you're not telegraphing to the next employer that they're a bad employee. They were a great employee, they just didn't fit with your business needs anymore. Termination meetings, now we're going to talk about the actual meeting itself. You want to identify the reason for the meeting, what led to the decision, the documentation that you really should provide to them, their reaction, what happens next, what the employee should do, removing their belongings and closing the meeting. Let's break this down. You want to talk about, when you start the meeting, if you start the meeting with small talk, hi John, how you doing today, how's the family, it's really hard to transition into the termination meeting. We always suggest that you start this meeting by saying, this is a meeting to discuss your separation from the company, this decision was made because, and this letter documents our decision and the circumstances leading up to it. Once you have said this meeting is to discuss your separation from the company, typically the employee pretty much shuts down and stops listening. The employee isn't thinking about anything except, what am I going to tell my spouse, we just bought that new car, oh my gosh, I just put a deposit on a vacation, the holidays are coming, my daughter is going to college, whatever is happening in their life, they have stopped listening to you and they've really become internalized. That's one of the reasons it's important to give them an overview letter of what just happened, they can look at it later and understand what happened, why it happened and what they should be doing next. So things to discuss and to put in the letter, COBRA or state continuation if you're not large enough to have COBRA, if you have a pension or a 401K, what their rights are, contact information, any vacation pay they have coming to them, PTO, when they can expect their final compensation, some states it's that day upon separation, other states it's the next paycheck, it's just whatever your state requires, return of company property if they have property that you have, when you need that back, how you need it back, don't withhold their paycheck until you get that property that's illegal in most states. A general release if you can get it, saying that, you know, that they're holding the company harmless and if somebody calls for a reference, you know, you'll be discussing their employment with them and it's okay that you do, they typically want to sign that because that means that the next employer can get information from you and some employers won't hire without that reference. Any available resources that might be in the community, reference inquiries, what you're going to say and then unemployment, most states you can apply for unemployment online, some people still like to go into the office because they have lots of resources there for job hunting. The written support, so that website, phone number of the unemployment office, you may have a written synopsis of benefits, wages, vacation, those types of things but then you might have names and contacts, there might be temp services, outsourcing agencies, you might know of a company down the street that's hiring. Any information, any support that you can give that person on the way out the door, even that bad employee, anything you can give them to help them transition into the new position and to the new employer means less liability for you, whether it's unemployment or lawsuit. Anything you can do to be helpful at this point in their life is good for you. Termination do's and don'ts, you do want to explain the reason for the termination. If you don't explain the reason and you leave the question of why unanswered, they will go back to it must be because I am and fill in the blank, it must be because I'm a woman, it must be because I'm over 40, it must be because I'm Hispanic or from Lithuania or it must be because I'm disabled, it must be because I'm pregnant. They will go to a protected class because almost everybody's in a protected class. There are so few people that aren't protected that that's naturally where we want to go because we don't understand what happened. So you really want to not leave the question of why unanswered. You always want to let them know why. You want to present the facts. You know, we talked about it on this occasion, this occasion, we gave you every opportunity to make that change, you didn't make that change, you knew the next step was termination or it's a downsizing and these are the, you know, this is the criteria we use to make that decision. You want to make sure that you will explain what we said in the reference. Some states only allow employers to give dates of hire, wages and maybe title. Other states you can say whatever you want so long as it's truthful. So find out what that rule is in your state and that's what you want to be sharing with that employee. Take the high road. It's so important that you take the high road. You, let's say this is a troublemaker, a loud mouth, you've won the battle, that employee is going away, that employee is going away, he's going to be gone now. Don't beat the guy, don't beat the dog as they're walking out the door, you know, don't beat him up anymore, it's a very traumatic experience to be terminated. So take the high road, terminate with dignity. Do explain what's going to be said to other employees and also allow the employee to voice their astonishment. But don't argue with them. The decision's been made, don't change the decision. If you change the decision and let them continue working, they now have the upper hand. They basically have you wrapped around their finger, they know how to control you. If they did it once, they can do it again. Do not consider a change. And also don't put yourself in danger. We'll talk a little bit about that on another slide. So here's the aftermath. This afternoon you call Mary into your office to discuss her separation from the company. You thought you were well prepared. Her productivity was not as expected and you presented many examples of that fact. Mary said she knew it was coming for some time now and was very understanding. You hand her the information pack you have prepared and wish her well. You tell her she should begin to collect her things. After Mary leaves your office, she returns to her cubicle to begin cleaning out her files and preparing to leave. Other employees stop by to see what is happening and Mary is making phone calls and about three hours later, Mary's still cleaning up. So this brings up the question, should you escort or should you not escort? We are not fans of escorting. Escorting does account for company property, it assures a speedy departure, but it also sends a very clear message to every other employee that that's what's going to happen to them. Along with being demoted, after you've been at a company for a year, two years, five years, 30 years, when they escort you out the door, it's probably one of the most humiliating things that could happen in your life. So escorting cons would include possible charges of defamation of character. I've been here for 30 years and now you don't trust me? Other employees see that and think, oh boy, if they're going to do that to me, I better take everything I can now while I can get it, because I'm not going to be able to touch anything when I leave. And the other thing it does, it leaves a sour case, the employee who is now leaving looks for other ways to get even with you and that spells losses. We would prefer to do other things instead of escorting. So what can you do? You can say to the employee, why don't you stop back early tomorrow morning or over the weekend and you can collect your belongings. Or while you're in there having a meeting with that employee, another manager is in their work area gathering their belongings and there's a box outside the office door when they're ready to leave where you pick up the box, you take it out to the employee's car, shake their hand, and put it in their car. They should never go back to the workspace. Never go back to the workspace. If they're angry, they might start throwing things, they might yell at people. You don't want them going back to that workstation right after their termination. So find another way. It's just not a good idea to escort for a variety of reasons that we've just laid out. So additional tips, who should terminate? Well, there's something called same-player rule. The best person to terminate an employee is the person who hired that employee. If the person who terminates is also the person who hires, that employee can't turn around and say, well, they fired me because I'm X because they were probably X when they were hired. Well, they fired me because I'm a woman. Well, you were a woman when we hired you. So if that was going to be a problem, we wouldn't have terminated you. If that's at all possible, have the same person fire that did the hiring. Next question, when should termination take place? Well, contrary to public belief, it should not be on a Friday afternoon. It should be early in the week and early in the day. That way the employee has time to walk out the door and start their job search right now immediately instead of brood about it for the weekend and think about ways to get even with their employer. I know the internet's out there, but just that there's a psyche of being in the work week where they feel like they should be working and they shouldn't be sitting around at home. They're not going to be job searching on a weekend. They're going to be sitting around home brooding. But if it's earlier in the week, chances are they'll get right back in that saddle and start looking for another job. Who should be present? We get calls to come and terminate people. We do nothing else with the company but come in and do terminations for that company. And we don't like to do that. We will do that because we feel sorry for them. But it really should be that person's supervisor. There should at least be one witness. If you have an HR department, HR should be there. And you want to make sure that you're not putting yourself in a position where they can come back and say, well, X, Y, and Z happened. If there's a witness there, they're going to pretty much have to stick to what really happened in that meeting. Terminations by phone. The only time I terminate by phone, I think maybe a couple instances. One would be if it's a long-distance termination. You don't want somebody driving 80 or 100 miles to come into work just to be terminated. That's just mean. You might want somebody who you're fearful is going to hurt or harm other people at your company. You might want to terminate them by phone. Maybe something that was a layoff that has now turned into a termination, you might want to do that by phone. Termination checklist. Please use one. We have one. We have it. Just send it to you at no charge. Just let us know. It's a great... It just helps you remember all the things that you need to do during a termination. If you don't terminate often, you'll probably forget some of those things. So it's just really a good thing to have as a checklist. And voluntary separation. If the employee is voluntarily separating, they're resigning for the company, make sure you get a written resignation statement from them. If the resignation statement is in their own handwriting, that's even better. If they write, you know, just give me a handwritten note of why you're leaving. Or you can use a form. But that way if they come back and say, oh no, they made me leave and there's nothing there, then again, they're going to take the employee's word over yours, so make sure you have that documentation in place. Caution. If you think about an office, if you think about your office, typically there's a door and you walk in the door and there's two chairs and then there's a desk and then you're behind that desk. If that employee is going to come at you to harm you, you have to get around the desk and around them to get out that door. So sometimes it's better to go into a conference room or some other area where you have closest access to the door. Another thing that you might want to do is have that support staff, that person who comes in, make sure it's the biggest, burliest person in your company that comes in and supports you. Something else you can do is after hours, have the meeting take place after hours or before hours in the morning. And it's something that I used to do in Richmond, Illinois. I was lucky enough to have floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the street and if I was going to have a particularly nasty termination, I would call the Richmond police and say, could you please come park on AMI Drive in front of my office because I'm going to terminate somebody in a half hour. And they'd be, you know, I'd be sitting at my desk, they'd be looking out the window behind me looking at a police car, so that sometimes kept them in line. Richmond was a very small town, the police had no problem doing that. I'm not sure that that would be the case in every scenario, but I was very lucky to have that. Terminating with dignity, and we are going to wrap up here in just a couple of minutes. For the company, when you take that high road that we talked about a little while ago, you keep the reputation of the company intact. Again, remember, there's social media out there. People will go online and rant and rave, and it's not just that they're talking to their neighbors anymore about what a rotten company it is and what an awful manager you are. They're talking to the internet, so that's going to millions and millions of people. And if you have a hard time hiring, it may be because you have reputation issues that are out there from disgruntled employees. If you terminate with dignity for the company, there's no regrets. You've gotten rid of the problem, you've done it in a way that left that employee who is now damaged because of the termination, you've left them as whole as possible. And the message gets out to other people that even though you have to make business decisions, you have to do it for the company, you do it in a way that has the least impact, certainly negative impact, and you're not trying to damage people. You're not trying to kick them when they're down. You're just trying to move on with your life. For the ex-employee, you might not be aware of this, but termination is one of the five leading causes of suicide. And having known of situations where a terminated employee did commit suicide, that's not something that's good for the employee, obviously, or for you, because if that happens because of a termination that you were involved with, you'll be carrying that around for the rest of your life. Let that person who is leaving, let them leave as intact as possible. Let, you know, be there to help them. If you need a letter of reference, when I hear of some other positions, let me take a look at your resume, I'll help you rewrite it. Do everything you can to help them hold their head high. It will be less of an impact for you for lawsuits and less of an impact for them on their life if you're helping them get right back in that saddle. I just can't impress enough how important it is to leave that person who's leaving whole. You've won the war. You've won the battle. You've won the war. Help them repair. So to wrap up, terminations can be costly. Lawsuits are rampant. And I'll tell you what, even if an employee goes to an attorney, and even if the attorney doesn't see anything like discrimination, that attorney is going to ask other questions like, how were you paid? And did you get overtime? And oh, were you on a salary? And they're going to ask a million other questions. So if that employee even thinks about going to an attorney, that termination can be costly. So make sure you've got your ducks in a row. The termination says absolutely volumes about your company. The termination can and should be dignified. Remember that for you, documentation is critical. In real estate, the buzzword is always location. In human resources, the buzzword is always documentation. The more documentation you have, the better your ability to prove what you did was not because of discrimination, was not because they were a whistleblower, was not because you were retaliating against them, but you had verified and documented reasons to make the decision you did. And finally, never, ever, ever put yourself in a place of danger. I want to thank you so much this morning for listening. I'm going to go all the way back to our first slide so my contact information is available for you to see. And as I said, if you have any questions or would like any of the forms we talked about, please reach out and we'll be happy to send them to you. We are an endorsed service provider for AED, and we're good to go. Thanks so much. Take care.

Employee Termination

Proper Documentation

Termination Procedures

Employee Rights

Lawsuits

Employee Protections

Employee Handbook

Thorough Documentation

Progressive Discipline