The Simplest Way to Terminate Employees In Your Business

So you need to fire someone on your team?

Well, yes, I know I need to fire this person. I'm kind of afraid of upsetting them. Yes, exactly.

Even if separating would be the best thing for both your business and that person's career. Well, you know what I think would make you feel better? Let's call up some other operators, some other business leaders who have done this before and get their tips on how to offboard properly so that way this doesn't feel so scary.

Yeah, let's do that.

Oh, here they are. Let's get on the call. Thanks so much for joining me.

Oh, well, hello everyone. My name's Chuck. I run Chuck Suds Soap. I think I need to fire somebody, but I'm scared. And I guess my first question is how do I even approach firing? Like, what are the steps involved?

Let me do a brief overview of what this process is then we're going to start at the beginning and start picking it apart. So process we're looking at today is employee offboarding. It is going to start with the decision that a offboarding needs to happen. But as we go through all the steps of this process, we end with work getting back to normal. So the person has been off boarded, we're all getting back to doing our tasks as normal. And what we have here are kind of the key steps that might be involved in that process.

Oh, that diagram there is pretty helpful. Let me know what I need to do next. Well, anyway, my next question is now I know what I need to do, but I'm still nervous to do it. Should I just wait?

I just can say that I often made the mistake that I waited too long to make the decision. So that's the biggest, biggest point for me on that. When I thought too long about that decision, I am always, yeah, it was always too late. And I think it's important to make the decision as early as possible.

That sounds like something that's easy in theory but hard to do in practice. How do you catch yourself from, you know, delaying those kinds of decisions?

I'm tending to decide out of the stomach. You say in German. I don't know if you say that in English too. What does stop me from taking the decision is that I thinking, oh, I'm like, I'm doing something wrong to that person and I'm showing too. Maybe that sounds hard a bit, but maybe I'm showing too much empathy for the other side.

That's exactly how I feel.

And making it bigger than my. My goal is basically it's like on the Plane, you have to help yourself first, then the others. And, and I think that's an important thing that you should take yourself on the first place there. Even if it's maybe sounds unemotional, unfair, hard, something like that. I think that's, that's important to keep in mind.

Yeah.

Ellen, what do you take of this? Because I know we talked a little bit before we started recording that you have a lower turnover business. Woo hoo. But I imagine in these situations before.

Yeah, we have and there are some things. So one of it is we try to make decisions that are data driven rather than other things. And it may be that we start with a gut like there's something off. Whether it's your communication styles have shifted or someone seems overwhelmed or something. Along those terms we look to start collecting data that is determined amongst either the leadership team or the leadership team and the employee to make sure that we are trending in the right direction and we're giving everyone a fair shot at making it work. For those things that are like the glimmers, maybe not the immediate oh this is grounds for immediate termination type thing, but for some of the ones that might be performance based or people, we historically have people who bite off more than they can chew. And so we look at what is your bandwidth, how is your bandwidth aligning from when you first accepted the position? Are you still able to meet the goals and needs of what we are doing today, what we need from you? Have things shifted? Did you take on other jobs, go to grad school, those kinds of things?

But how do I even start this kind of conversation?

I think it's important to come to the point as fast as you can because when you speak the first sentence the other side of on the, on the table or the employee already know that this won't, won't have a nice ending, this talk. So I think that's important. And what I personally find very important is to appreciate the time and the work which employee had already put into the company. And I would say in most cases there is a lot to appreciate.

That's a great tip. Ellen, anything you want to add?

I would agree with the. Just get to the point. Don't, don't draw it out because oh yeah, most people, most people are gonna have a feeling about that.

I know the first time I did this I actually had to. When I actually did it properly, I ended up having to write it out. Like let's just get, get, get it out of my head first. Not gonna read the script, but at least know what you're going to say so that it's not so overwhelming.

All right, so let me just rehearse this real quick, make sure I know what y' all talk about. So I'll have this call and I'll say, Susie, unfortunately today is going to be your last day at Chuck Suds. I am so grateful for all the work you've done as our shipping manager. I've seen you try to get all of our shipping numbers up and up. But unfortunately, as we're moving on to this new system, I've realized we really don't need a shipping manager anymore. We can automate most of this stuff inside our project management software. And because you have said you're not interested in shifting to any other roles in the company, unfortunately, this means I'm going to have to let you go. Now, I know this is a lot of information to digest, so I'm going to write it all up in an email and send it over to you along with that severance agreement I mentioned. If you have any questions, just respond to that email. And if you're open to have kind of an off boarding call, I'd love to schedule that as well. I'll send all that in the email, though. For now, though, I just want to say thank you so much for your time here and I truly do wish you the best in your next chapter. It wasn't that bad when he didn't practice it like that. But you know, I am a little nervous still of what the rest of the team is going to say because the rest of the team doesn't know that I've been working with Susie on this for months, that she's been struggling to transition into other roles that, you know, they don't know the full story. So this is going to be a surprise to them. How do I approach the rest of the team with this news?

It's not about the meeting. It's not about what you're doing right then. It's what you've done with them for the last six months. And the culture you have built and the openness that you have cultivated and the communication skills that you have all developed and practiced with one another. We specifically will be like, if anybody needs to turn off their, most of our team has their camera on. If anybody needs to turn off their camera, if anybody needs to go, walk away. If you need to go watch the birds for five minutes or whatever it is to deal with whatever feels there is. There is no situation where our team is tied to their desk. Even if they're Getting hard information. Everybody always has a tap out. And that does not. That's not a skill that you teach when you're already developing hard information.

Ooh, obligatory reminder here. This is not financial, legal, HR or any other kind of advice. Do your own research, follow your own laws, whether we are not liable, blah, blah, blah. Disclaimer. Disclaimer. This is just a YouTube video, so don't use it to run your business. All right, let's go back to the video.

I would agree with Ellen. It's like kind of in the culture which is developed in the past. But what helps, I think, is that I make quarterly meetings with my employees. That's just a quick walk and talk. And if nobody has a topic, then we talk about, I don't know, soccer, weather, stuff like that. But there is a room where you can share something. And it's very often if there's something like it pops up there, and if it's very deep down there, then it pops up. When you go partying with your team.

There'S the pro tip. Go partying with your team.

Really? That, that's. That's. Yeah, that sounds ridiculous. But if it's something is very. I always had that. The quarterly meetings or walk and talks are very fine. But if there is maybe also a bit of alcohol in the game and then something pops out from deep down there, they would never have said. And sometimes that helped.

Man, this was just so helpful. You might not have to rename this helpline the Chuck line and make me a frequent caller.

Hold on a second. No, we are not making Chuck line a thing. These are people from the Indiops network membership we run who are sharing the processes that work well for them as part of our monthly pips and the long form interviews we do every single month. So the only way we're going to do more videos like this is if people watching this video go down to the comments below and write chuckline in the comments. If they vote for more videos like this and they like and subscribe and all those things, then maybe, yeah, Chuck, we'll have you back. But you're at the mercy of the people.

I'm sure they're gonna vote in the comments. But real quick, who are the two of you again? I'd like to know who I'm thanking.

I'm Ellen Yocum. I'm the operations and co owner of a company called Pet Harmony Animal Behavior and Training. And we work with pets and their people to help them live harmoniously.

I'm Simon. I'm leading multiple online marketing agencies on the one hand, and since, I don't know, since 11 years. So I had to off and onbo many employees so far. And on the other hand, I'm leading or I started up an agency which is automating and processing other online marketing agencies in Germany.

Well, thank you, Ellen and Simon.

Thank you for having us.

There's just one problem.

Well, I'll say I feel prepared, but now I gotta go fire somebody.

Okay, two problems.

Oh, well, what's the other one?

Well, you figured out how to fire somebody with dignity and empathy and understanding on both sides. But you've also gotten a ton of ideas from this video on what exactly you can be changing. And if you try to change all of those things, you're going to get overwhelmed and probably not finish them. So what we need to talk about next is how do you prioritize all of these changes and decide which ideas, which suggestions you should focus on first? But fortunately, we have a video on that right here.

You're right. I've got a whole list of ideas just from this video. I got a few. Figure out how to prioritize these. I'm going to go watch that next one.

Enjoy the process.