Termination: 7 Practical Suggestions How

Firing someone is never easy, but sometimes it must be done. In the previous post I outlined the 3 legitimate reasons why you may have to take such action.

Managers and supervisors should always seek expert advice before taking such action. When you ultimately have to do it, here are 7 practical suggestions to follow:

1. Never fire employees on the spot: firing someone can be emotional; it is better to suspend, pending investigation, allowing cooler minds to prevail.
2. Limit firing to a few key managers: this is a serious matter. Leave it to key managers, but allow supervisors the authority to suspend.
3. Use a progressive discipline system: have a defensible, fair process; it protects the employee, the manager and the company.
4. Have a witness present when firing: having another manager present ensures that it is done properly and minimizes misunderstandings and false accusations.
5. Never be abusive or outrageous: being abusive and outrageous is a ticket to a lawsuit. Be professional and civil, minimizing a violent reaction and protecting the dignity of the employee.
6. Never give a false reason when firing: be honest. Giving a false reason could result in a lawsuit.
7. Have documentation supporting the reason for termination: your case for termination should be solid and must be consistent with your policies. If it is not, you shouldn’t do it.

Follow these suggestions and minimize making a difficult situation worse.

For assistance, call my HR HelpLine.

HR HelpLine: When You Need Expert Advice

Managing people is hard and often frustrating.  Throw in those ever changing employment laws, lawyers that want to sue, employees who “know their rights,” a bruising economy and everyone demanding more and more of your time, and your job just got very complicated.

Well, I can help you with the people side of the business. Since I started my business in 1995 I have provided my clients with practical, uncomplicated, expert advice on how to make managing easier. Through my HR HelpLine, I have provided managers, just like you, the human relations expertise and hands-on skills needed to improve employee productivity, mitigate risk, and eliminate headaches that comes with managing people.

My clients call me for help on a number of difficult issues, from how to deal with the cook who came to work smelling of booze, to the clerk who hasn’t showed up to work in days, to the injured nurse who has refused to return on modified duty, to the manager who gets bit “handsy” with his female staff. You name it, I’ve been asked.

Regardless of the issue, if it is impacting your workplace, I can provide you with the assistance and expert advice you need to rectify the situation.

Want to know more? You can click HR HelpLine for a more detailed description of the service or you can call me direct at 207-967-0837. It’s that easy.

Incidentally, when you call the HR HelpLine, you speak only to me, Rick Dacri. No rookies. And, beyond the unlimited phone and email access, I’ll also give you a subscription to my management newsletter, The Dacri Report; a copy of my book, Uncomplicating Management; and regular updates and alerts designed to help make managing a bit easier.

Sound too good to be true? Give me a call and we can talk a bit more about it—and when you do, I’ll even send you a copy of my book—Free. See, I’m a nice guy too!

How Managers Can Raise Their Performance: 3 Uncomplicated Questions

Having a healthy, open dialogue between employees and their manager is the cornerstone to employee engagement and productivity. While the focus is often on the employee’s performance and steps needed to raise the bar on their performance, attention must also be directed on the impact the manager’s action have on it.

Managers can quickly get a sense of their impact by asking their employees, individually, 3 simple, uncomplicated questions:

 

1. What am I doing that you would like me to STOP doing?
2. What am I not doing that you would like me to START doing?
3. What am I doing that you would like me to CONTINUE doing?

              Stop/Start/Continue

 Watch the reaction as you first pose these probing questions. Most employees will be initially reluctant to respond. Being honest can have negative consequences. But with time and trust, they will respond and their responses will allow the manager to reflect upon his style, allowing him to manage better.

To remember the questions, think of a traffic light. Red for STOP, yellow for CONTINUE, and green for START.

Give it a try, and then let me know how it works out for you by responding in the comment section below.

Management Development: Belmont Light Completes Uncomplicating Management

The Belmont Light management team successfully completed the management development program Uncomplicating Management. Based in part on my book of the same title, these managers attended the following 5 training modules:

• Module #1: What it means to be a real leader & understanding why managing is so hard
• Module #2: Know the law
• Module #3: Dealing with difficult employee issues
• Module #4: Developing, coaching and engaging your people
• Module #5: Critical conversations & improving interpersonal communication skills

Check out the program outline.

If you would like to learn more about the program and the and how it will benefit your management team, contact me at rick@dacri.com.

Unemployment Compensation: How To Win Claims

I frequently get questions on my HR HelpLine on how to prepare for and win an unemployment claim.  Here are some tips:

Unemployment Compensation provides individuals who have lost their jobs a temporary source of income. Administered by each state, employees who have been let go due to a lack of work (lay off) or performance are generally able to collect.

Though the rules vary by state, there are generally four reasons to disqualify an employee from collecting:

1. Fired for misconduct
2. Voluntarily quit without good cause attributed to their employment
3. Not available or able for full time work
4. Not a citizen or authorized to work in the U.S.

Though the disqualifying reasons are clear, employees who would not normally be eligible to collect, do. Many times it is because employers make mistakes either prior to the employee filing a claim or after a claim has been filed. Here are the common mistakes:

Retirement: The Times They Are A Changin’

(I wrote this article and it was originally published in the York County Coast Star on January 17, 2013)

I recently attended the retirement party of a local executive, and I suspect it will be the first of many. As I surveyed the gathering, I was struck by the “grayness” of the attendees. We are getting old.

 One could reasonably argue that my perspective is a bit distorted. After all, one is likely to mirror your professional colleagues. But in this case, the census corroborates my observations. The first wave of baby boomers has reached retirement and the number of persons 55 and older has increased by 43%. One in eight Americans is 65 or older and that will increase to one in five by 2030.  And the numbers are worse in Maine making our population the oldest in America.

The attendees at the party came from several organizations to honor the new retiree. One company was represented by four of their senior managers—three of whom have announced their own plans to retire within the next three years. In fact, the banter was about who’d get out first. While this made for good fun, it highlights a real business issue that we as a society face: a large number of our workers will be leaving the workforce and few companies are prepared.

A recent survey conducted by the AMA Enterprise showed that one in five companies is utterly unprepared for the sudden loss of leadership and nearly 25% have no succession plan whatsoever. Only 8% maintain comprehensive plans, never mind any kind of method to capture the knowledge of those future retirees as they walk out the door, never to return. With three senior managers leaving this company, nearly a century of experiences and knowledge will soon be lost. This could be devastating for the company.

All organizations, large and small must put plans in place now.

Flu Season Preparation

The flu season is upon us and it looks like it is going to be severe. Already Boston has declared a state of emergency. Employers need to take steps to protect their employees and business before they get hit with a major outbreak.

 Here are 6 things you can do:

1. Encourage all your employees to get vaccinated. This is the single best way to prevent or at least minimize the impact. Educate your workers on the importance. Put up signs. Communicate its importance. Encourage them to get the vaccine and have their family vaccinated.
2. Check with your medical insurance provider or broker to see whether the vaccination is covered in full by your health insurance.
3. Consider hosting a flu vaccination clinic. You don’t have to be a big firm to do this. Often times you can partner with a local pharmacy to have this done on your site.
4. Encourage ill employees to stay home. Your highly engaged workers will drag themselves in to do their job but you need to tell them to stay home. Don’t let them infect the rest of the operation.
5. Review your sick leave and attendance policies to make sure you’re not sending the message to stay home but have policies that will penalize workers for doing that. Now is the time for flexibility and at the same time educate your managers and supervisors on this. You don’t want to be sending mixed messages.
6. Promote cleanliness and personal hygiene. Educate your employees on proper coughing and sneezing methods. Put hand sanitizer everywhere. Encourage regular disinfecting of phones, keyboards, doorknobs, faucets, etc.

The flu will have an enormous impact on business. Absenteeism and lost productivity can have a crippling effect. Studies show that an individual with the flu will lose up to 6 work-days. Prevention is the key.

Take steps now to address this issue. And call me if you need advice.

What is your company doing to prepare? Share below in the comment section.

Make Managing Easy (Short Video)

Problem Solving: Blame Games Cost Companies

By Rick Dacri, Dacri & Associates, LLC

(This article was originally published in the York County Coast Star on November 15, 2012)

My friend Terry is a successful sales executive — in spite of the fact that the employees of his company actively work against him. No, they don’t dislike him or try to overtly sabotage him. What they do is much worse — they refuse to give him the information he needs to make a sale and the president of the company encourages this behavior. It’s crazy.

When I first heard this, I couldn’t believe it. Why would the president deliberately sanction behavior that undermines the growth and success of his own company? A little background:

Terry works for a firm that specializes in printing, mailing and archiving critical documents, primarily for financial institutions. This includes the design and delivery of bank statements, electronic statements, bank checks, etc. It’s all pretty sophisticated and technical.

To help these customers, Terry must work with their executives, IT professionals and the purchasing department to understand their needs. Then he meets with his own company’s employees to help him prepare a quote for a specific job, and this is where the problems begin. You see, to generate an accurate proposal he needs to know how long it will take for programming, production and shipping to do the job. Mistakes made here can be very costly, so Terry and the other sales executives depend on the people who know this stuff. But, when he goes to the respective company managers for input, he finds them reluctant to provide him this essential information. They force Terry to figure this all out by himself.

When I heard this I was shocked and asked why they would refuse to do their jobs. Turns out, if an employee makes a mistake on a quote, let’s say they estimate it will take less time to do the job than it actually does, there is hell to pay. The president will come running down to the offices and production floor demanding to know who made the mistake that cost him money!

Costly Turnover Can Be Controlled

Turnover will create chaos in your organization. Supervisors will have to run their shifts short, hurting production; the scheduler’s life will be a nightmare trying to plug holes in the schedule with overtime and temps; and budgets will be busted from recruiting and training replacements, excessive overtime, and lost productivity.

Turnover can be controlled and can never be considered a cost of doing business. With top management commitment, you can increase retention by following these 3 steps:

1. Metrics: Understand the extent of the problem. Put in place some simple metrics to understand how great the problem may be; where it is occurring; when it is happening; and what managers have the highest turnover on their shifts. With this information you can then begin determining why it is occurring. This upfront analysis is essential for the success of the change process.
2. Determine the Causes: The next step is to determine why it is occurring. There are three powerful tools to provide you that information: 1) employee engagement surveys; 2) focus groups; and 3) exit interviews. The employee survey is a great barometer to help you understand what your employees are thinking. Since surveys only provide a snapshot, focus groups provide a deeper understanding of the issues. Finally, for those employees lost, exit interviews will help you understand why.
3. Follow-Up Program: Armed with this information, you can begin correcting any problems by developing a comprehensive follow-up program.

Turnover can be controlled in any organization.

Rick Dacri

Dacri & Associates, LLC