Among the biggest causes of stress, especially for young executives, is having to play the role of executioner when it comes to firing an employee. It’s probably the worst job on the planet. Here are some tips on how to face the difficult task of letting an employee go.
Let’s say we have to fire an employee who we already know is dishonest with their colleagues and whose integrity leaves a lot to be desired. When an employee is a burden on a company and knows it, the process is simple: “You’re fired.” This is the easiest case, since you’re going to do something you want to do and have been wanting to do for a long time.
The problem comes when you have to fire an employee who has worked hard for your company, and the reason is simply a forced reduction in staff. Assuming we’ve been good leaders, this employee is like part of your family, and the news you have to give them is not good at all, nor do you feel like delivering it.
Well, there is only one piece of advice for carrying out this hard task: be polite and get to the point.
You don’t want to be in the position of telling him that you have to let him go. At the same time, he won’t be comfortable in that situation either, so skip the opening speech, because all it will do is prolong the agony.
Think of it this way. If your partner has been unfaithful, however they tell you, the end result will be the same and you’ll take it just as well. So get to the point, and then ease the tension.
Some executives say that, by trying to calm things down before breaking the news, they ended up facing 45 minutes of pleading, because from the start they didn’t make it clear that this was the final decision and had already been made. In these cases, always stress that you’re very happy with him and that as soon as the situation improves, you’ll call him back.
Although he’s taking away the bad news of losing his job, at least he shouldn’t sink psychologically thinking he was incompetent.
Without forgetting what we said at the start: get to the point, but always politely.
This task is so difficult that large American companies are already hiring specialist firms to make dismissals more bearable. Now, when an employee is fired at one of these companies, it’s done by a person they’ve never met. This person is supposedly specialised in the task.
A year ago, an employee who was told he was going to be fired lost his temper and gave a beating to one of these contracted dismissal specialists. In the United States, nobody thought this way of firing people was ineffective; quite the opposite. Demand for these services has since increased, because they reckon the company’s own CEO could have taken that beating, and nobody wants to be next.
Further reading
- A leader’s mistakes
- Common mistakes Hispanic business owners make
- The difference between Hispanic and American business owners
- How to run a business in times of crisis
Featured image: Ivan Bogdanov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
