What (Not) to Do When You Have to Fire an Employee
Six years later, my first firing still haunts me, here’s what you can learn from my mistakes.
Six years later, my first firing still haunts me, here’s what you can learn from my mistakes.
If you’re in management long enough, you will have to fire someone. It’s an inevitability. Below I’ll walk through my biggest takeaways from the mistakes I made in my first firing.
Lean into the below tips early so you aren’t fighting an uphill battle later. Performance management takes time, which is why many managers avoid it altogether and let underperforming employees linger for so long.
Do Your Own Detective Work
If collecting feedback is not already a core part of how you’re managing, I would recommend putting it higher on the priority list. Not only does it help with anomaly detection, it also helps you build relationships that open the feedback pipeline.
The individual was brought to my attention by a project leader who was unhappy with their output. They were focusing on the wrong things and were difficult to reach when needed.
Approaching the individual, I hopped right into resetting expectations without hearing their side of the story. The look of shock on their face should have been enough to let me know I was a little off-base, but we needed to resolve the problem now.
I wish I would have spent more time understanding how they viewed the situation. Instead, I rescinded their work-from-home privileges indefinitely (back in the days when remote was way less common).
Had I dug further and done my own detective work, I would have seen that while some of what was noted was true, it was a lack of clarity in expectations, role, and expected output.
Could the whole situation have been prevented? Possibly, but without seeing things for myself upfront, or getting a firsthand account from the individual, I jumped too many steps ahead and ruined the chances of getting to a smoother resolution.
Spend time understanding and make no presumptions that you already know what’s happening. If you observe it with your own eyes, it is easier to identify and remedy. When you are unable to see it yourself, get additional feedback.
Regarding Performance and Expectations, Be Extremely Clear
After a week or so of continued performance issues, I decided to put the individual on a performance improvement plan (PIP).
They were still unsettled from the conversation the week before, so our discussion of the PIP did not land well. My requirements of how to succeed were vague; I was not as clear as I could have been on each of my points, and leaving the paperwork with the individual, there were more questions than answers. I’m still embarrassed with how poorly prepared I was.
A PIP should leave no room for question marks. The individual being performance managed should understand where they stand with you as a manager throughout the year, but especially during a PIP.
Pick 2–4 items that highlight where they are missing the mark in their role expectations, and give clear guidance on how they can succeed for each. It’s not enough to say, “these must improve,” you should give tangible feedback on how the behaviors and actions can improve. Tie them directly to the projects in flight the individual is working on.
If they have a good week, let them know you need to see more of those weeks. One week is not enough of a pattern to lift a PIP. Most PIPs last 30–60 days and should be reviewed at least weekly. In each review, you need to see sustained improvement, week-over-week, to prove once the PIP is lifted, the individual can still perform their role as needed.
There’s plenty more detail we could go into here, but the key is, provide extreme clarity in all aspects of a PIP, and ask to confirm that everything is clear at the outset. Someone’s job is on the line and you owe it to them to be direct.
Document Everything
This goes for all performance management, but you need to document everything, especially in the weeks and months leading up to termination.
Every conversation, every progress or backslide, all must be documented so you have facts that you can provide when working with the individual. Note the word choice, “facts.” Emotional data is not helpful in this case, as you want an objective view of everything that is transpiring. Use the journalism rule of no editorializing, and have your manager or HR partner review to ensure you are keeping emotion out of it.
In the instance above, I did not document my conversations or progress well. I wavered on how well the individual was doing, even though day-to-day there were peaks and valleys and week-to-week was an overall neutral or negative trend. Without keeping good documentation, I was left to base things on emotion and loose observation alone which caused frustration among the individual, their teammates, and the group leader in charge of their project.
It may feel like overkill or like you’re critiquing every small thing, but more data is better than less if you get to the point of termination.
Our brains have a habit of looking through the lens of recency bias, so if this week was good, our brains tell us that they are doing well. Looking at your notes, you may realize, this is one week of four, so the average is still trending negative. Be objective, and leverage your notes to make the best decision about whether this individual can succeed in the future.
Stop Making Excuses for Them
These were direct words from my boss at the time. She’d gotten frustrated with me because, although we’d seen the repeated behavior and the project work was neutral or worse, I was still making excuses for them instead of showing proof of improvement or any semblance of a plan of how it would get better.
Mentally, I was still trying to reset from my botched initial conversations and wasn’t looking at the problem objectively.
I was letting the emotion of what the individual would think of me, what the team would think if I terminated this person, and overall dealing with a lot of first-firing failure thoughts. I hired this person. I felt that if they failed, it was my fault, that I’d then failed as a manager, and I let that cloud my judgment.
If you’ve given the individual all the tools they need to be successful, provided extreme clarity, and they’re still not able to meet expectations, it’s not a good fit. In reality, you will eventually hire someone who doesn’t work out. The sign of a good manager is seeing that it’s a bad fit, resolving the situation quickly, and applying the experience to future hiring. Run a retro with yourself or your manager afterward and see where things went wrong.
No Matter How Many Times You Do It, Firing Someone Sucks
This case in particular was brutal. Not only did I have to let them go, I then had to walk them out of the building. I told them I was sorry (a mistake in termination conversations) and that they would land on their feet. I’m an awkward small-talker and should have stayed silent. I later learned that a manager walking someone out is not normal and should be handled by HR or Security (if it’s a large enough company). Great lessons in what not to do.
There is a heavy emotional burden on all parties involved, so prepare yourself to deal with your emotions appropriately.
Before the conversation, you’ll likely question yourself if this is a rash decision. If you’ve followed the advice from above and have the previous weeks documented, you can look objectively at whether they were or weren’t successful during that time.
During the termination itself, you need to be firm, unwavering, and confident in the decision on which you are following through. Practice the conversation with your HR representative or manager to physically get the words out of your body at least once. Practicing can go a long way in refining the final message and making sure you hit your key points. There should be no question from the individual on this final decision.
Afterward, you will likely have the same sense of self-doubt but review your notes, remind yourself of the work it took to get to any improvement, and move forward.
This process sucks. There is time investment on all sides and can be difficult to navigate. Remind yourself why you went through with it.
Final Thoughts
Terminating an employee is difficult and emotional work. Objectively, it is time-consuming and can be a heavy lift.
The quote,
“the best way to lose a good employee is to tolerate a bad one,”
is one that stays fresh in my mind when I think about performance management and terminations.
The team knows, though they might not say it, when someone is underperforming or is a bad fit. It is up to you as a manager and leader to build and maintain a high-performing team. That unfortunately means that sometimes you have to cut ties with an individual.
What are some of your worst firing experiences?