The Complexity of Firing an Employee

You may or may not have been on the business end of a firing speech before. You may have to give one soon. People don't think laying off someone is that hard, but it can be, especially if the person you are firing is very emotional. Luckily, there are a few tricks you can use to make the job a little easier, and some ways to use firing as a way to motivate a bad worker.

It's a lot easier to lay off someone because you need to downsize your branch than if they are a bad worker. If this is the case, you can simply say how great a worker they are, and that they are being let go only because it is necessary. The employee might ask why they have to go, and even say they should choose somebody else, not them. Depending on the employee, the answer will vary, but you can always say something generic like, "We just chose a few people, we're sorry you were one of them. Don't worry, we will write you a great letter of recommendation", something like that. As long as you are calm and nice, after about seven or ten minutes, the person will stop fighting it.

Firing someone because they are a bad employee is harder because you have to really explain to them what they did wrong. If it seems like it's just too hard, you can always just lie and go with the downsizing route, but they'll probably wonder why nobody else is getting fired. You can just say that you're doing it throughout the day... something like that. Of course, they could call someone and then find out nobody got fired, and they would be angry, so that's not a good decision to make. The best thing to do is just stick it out, and tell the person exactly what they did wrong.

A wide variety of things could happen; the person could get upset and just leave (which is the best, because then usually the problem is solved), they say they'll do better and give them another chance, or they yell at you and exclaim how you made a horrible decision. As with the downsizing, you need to stay calm so they will be calm. On rare occasions, you may have to call security, but this makes a scene and creates an awkward work environment for a bit of time after the incident. Avoid that at all costs. Also, never place Kleenex or anything next to the person when you're going to fire them, because it actually encourages crying and it tells the employee that you think they're going to crack up, and it could make them mad. Therefore, just remember to be calm, and you should be fine.