Whether you’re planning to fire an employee or one of your people tells you they need a chat, having to exit employees is never easy.
Firing someone is probably the most difficult thing you’ll ever have to do as a boss. By the same token, it’s hard not to take it personally when someone who you’ve nurtured tells you they’re leaving. Yet, people resign for many reasons, most of which are beyond your control.
Both scenarios can be gut wrenching, though it’s important to remember that business is business. Here are five steps to follow to exit employees in the most positive way.
Step 1: Get your paperwork in order
Firing: If you’re the one doing the firing, process and paperwork are very important parts of exiting employees. It’s essential to follow the rules about dismissal, notice and final pay. Even if you’re firing an employee for serious misconduct or for unsatisfactory performance you need to follow due process.
Procedural fairness is fundamental to how Fair Work Australia decides an unfair dismissal cases. If you fail to show you have applied procedural fairness before exiting an employee, or your performance management process is flawed, it will usually result in a finding that the dismissal was unfair.
There are also different rights and obligations when you make a job redundant or where bankruptcy is involved. With genuine redundancies, you need to carefully follow any obligations outlined in the relevant Award or enterprise agreement. Awards and enterprise agreements set down notice periods, redundancy provisions and consultation obligations.
Many problems that arise exiting employees can be avoided with a clearly worded employment contract, as well as uniformly enforced workplace policies on termination and redundancy. These policies should define the behaviours which are unacceptable and would constitute a serious breach of the employment contract, as well as setting down the consequences of such behaviour.
Step 2: Secure your business
Prior to your employee’s last day, make sure your IT department revokes the employee’s access to the company’s systems. It’s also good practice to update critical passwords as soon as the employee leaves the company or even during the termination meeting if necessary. If the employee is familiar with your alarm system, change the access code to that as well. If applicable, notify staff in the building’s security office of the employment change.
Step 3: Take possession of company property
Again, prior to their last day, ensure the employee returns any company issued property, such as:
- Laptops or tablets
- Equipment or tools
- Company-issued mobile phones
- Company credit cards
- Uniforms
- Building keys
Step 4: Do’s:
- Communicate the message to your team as soon as possible, so that the employee in question doesn’t feel awkward, your team don’t feel left out of the loop, and you can start making contingency plans for managing the work left behind.
- Conduct an exit interview. If you aren’t uncovering the reasons why people are leaving, how can you know what you need to change/fix?
- Use the information from the exit interview to make real change in your business. Always use feedback as a chance to grow and develop.
- Hold some kind of leaving party or at the very least, buy a card to thank the person for their time with you. They showed you some kind of loyalty, commitment and at the very least time in their employment, so make sure you say thank you for that.
- Give them the time to do a proper handover. If they are in a customer facing role, your clients will appreciate it. They will appreciate having the opportunity to say goodbye. Even for the replacement employee, a proper handover document makes a world of difference to their immediate productivity.
Step 5: Don’ts:
- Don’t be seen to take it personally. Be objective, be factual, and be calm. If you need to postpone the meeting to take a step back, then do so. Never use words like disappointed, hurt, frustrated, or anything to create a negative personal connotation.
- Don’t make rash decisions. How you behave in these key moments will shape what your team think of you as a manager. Take the time to formulate a plan which will have minimum impact on the rest of your team, and make sure you have decided what the message is you want to communicate to your team, and to the wider business.
- Don’t speak poorly of the person at any point, to anyone in the business. I recently heard of a manager saying to one of their other team members something along the lines of, if we had to lose someone that is the person that should go. No. Do not go there.
- Don’t create uncertainty around pay; by the time they leave they should have a final payslip in hand, with a date of when they will receive their final pay with any accrued holiday pay.
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