BEFORE FIRING ANY PROBLEMATIC EMPLOYEE, WHAT YOU MUST DO

Presented by - Abayomi John Elliott  (Culled from Success Digest)

When it comes to the issue of firing a problematic employee, you need not be in a hurry; otherwise you might be doing more harm to yourself than good. This is important especially if the employee holds a sensitive or critical position in the in the company. The following two things are advisable before you take your final decision.

Review the employee’s terms of employment

You should take out time to review the employee’s contract whether it is you that have been asking for too much from him, things that are not in his contract. You must ask yourself if you are demanding for more than what he can bear or is expected of him without adequate compensation? Is he due for promotion and he was not promoted? You may have to ask even more to make sure you are not the cause of his recent misbehavior that warrants firing him.

Disengage gradually

After reviewing the staff’s terms of employment and you find out his negative behavior to his duties is not as a result of any ill-treatment from your company, and that you really need to fire him, it is advisable to do it gradually and systematically.

You can get somebody to learn what that employee is doing. For instance, if you run a fashion boutique and this individual is responsible for handling cash in that business, to fire him on the spot will not be advisable, you need to get somebody that will take up job, but he will be groomed and train in a different place where nobody knows except yourself for security reason. Anybody you know that is in the same fashion business with you can help you train such a new person for the period you want before bring him or her to start the job without been a novice, then you can fire the employee in question.

Please make sure that not one person handle sensitive position in your business, and before then, you would have started to take off some of his responsibilities gradually without him knowing your intentions, and what that mean is that you have to be on ground during that period if your business is running with a staff strength of less than 5.

Firing a capable employee due to indiscipline and misbehavior can be a tough one, hard and difficult decision to take by anybody especially when you think of the cost and the efforts required in replacing him. However, for the sake of the success of your business, it’s a decision you must take. The ideas so far, should help you make the needed change smoothly without it affecting your business.