Be decisive yet sensitive when terminating employees

Practice Management. By Mike Norbut, AMNews staff. April 24, 2006.

Letting go of an employee can be an adventure of the worst kind. From arguments and harsh words to rumors swirling among co-workers, a firing or layoff can instantly turn a happy office into a hotbed of animosity.

Worse yet, deciding to let someone go leads you into a labyrinth of delicate issues and potential misstatements that could weaken your position and make you target of a lawsuit.

"Planning is critical to minimizing legal claims," said Mary Drobka, a management, labor and employment attorney and partner in the Seattle office of Davis Wright Tremaine. "I do advise employers to be ready to respond to the 'Why me?' question. If you can't say it at that time, you're not going to be able to say it later to a judge, jury or investigator."

The answer to that question has to be related to business criteria, Drobka said. If you need to lay someone off and there are no guidelines for doing so in your company handbook, you need to focus on performance or seniority rather than, say, an employee's personal life or marital status, she said.

Attorneys and consultants suggest saying only as much as you need to and keeping the conversation with the terminated employee short. If it's a performance issue, the employee likely would know the situation before stepping into the office, especially if there have been documented meetings and signed forms.

"Chances are, a lot has led up to that," said Thomas Weida, MD, a family physician in Hershey, Pa., and professor of family medicine at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. Dr. Weida is speaker of the American Academy of Family Physicians. "If you're firing someone for poor performance, the part to realize is that they fired themselves."