Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2011, during Spain’s economic crisis, and its references to Zapatero and Rajoy reflect that year’s politics. Point 10 relies on Spanish severance pay rules of the time; the amounts were cut by the February 2012 labour reform.
There are a thousand reasons why an employee can be fired from a company. Sometimes a single slip is enough, and other times a pile-up of causes ends up exhausting the boss’s patience. Sometimes employees don’t understand why they were let go, or, when there is a staff “clear-out”, they simply wonder why they were chosen to leave rather than a colleague.
Among the most common causes of a quick dismissal are the following:
1. Lying on your CV or in the job interview.
In this case you could say the employee brought about their own dismissal before they were even hired. They did it on the day that, desperate to land the job, they lied about their skills or experience, or simply said they could do everything that was asked of them. When the time came to tackle a task they were supposedly prepared for, the alarm bells went off.
It’s common to hear in a job interview that someone’s level in a foreign language is intermediate when it is really basic or non-existent, and the same goes for knowledge of office software. Some companies overlook these small lies. Others, however, feel cheated and don’t hesitate to fire the employee.
2. Sleeping with a superior.
We all know that work takes up most of our lives, so many happy love stories begin at the office. The problem is that sometimes, with the best intentions in the world, an employee may feel attracted to their superior and vice versa.
In these cases, a very high percentage of people are unable to separate personal from professional life, and if things go sour between the two, both will have put their jobs at risk, although the first to leave the company will be the employee (well before the boss). In some companies, the mere fact that an executive gives free rein to their natural instincts is more than enough reason to call their professionalism into question.
3. Lack of competence.
This may be one of the most honourable failings, because some people are simply not suited to the work they do. They are friendly, generous, humble, they get along with their colleagues and so on, but if they weren’t in the company, productivity wouldn’t notice. They are usually people who have probably chosen the wrong profession and have not yet found what they are truly passionate about and good at. They are entirely dispensable to a company and are seen as a cost.
4. Competent but troublesome.
Let’s say this person is the star of the company, an apparently indispensable figure. They seem to be a real professional in their field, and their good results have inflated their ego to the point where they think the company needs them. They stir up conflict among their colleagues, ignore the company’s guidelines and, of course, because they get good results, they believe they are above the rules. Over my career I have met a few people like this, and every one of them learned that after they were fired, the company carried on, and with better harmony.
These would be the reasons for a quick dismissal, since it is highly advisable not to have employees of this kind on the payroll. On the other hand, there are other reasons why a company may end up setting its sights on an employee. They are small details that nobody pays attention to until one day they add up.
5. Mistakes that cost the company money.
Every employee can make mistakes, and a company expects it. A secretary might get the address wrong when sending out an order, a sales rep might make a mistake when drawing up a quote, and a technician might slip up when making a product. These are errors that cost the company some money, but they can be absorbed as long as they don’t come one after another, because that would suggest the employee isn’t focused.
6. Too many personal phone calls.
The typical employee who spends much of their working time calling family, friends, their girlfriend and so on. Whether they use the company phone to make these calls matters least; what matters most is that while they’re hanging on the phone for hours, they’re not doing their job.
7. The web surfer.
More and more people are being fired for the time they spend browsing the internet. Many employees aren’t aware that some companies have tools to detect how much time we spend online on personal matters. In more serious cases, a company’s security has been put at risk by someone accessing certain applications from a company computer.
8. Sucking up the wrong way.
Sucking up to your boss may not be well regarded nowadays, since, among other things, it signals insecurity. Some bosses appreciate it, and in that case it’s the boss who should leave the company. Sucking up is usually a way of getting a superior’s attention “positively”: we try to show that we are committed to the company, that we’re there for anything our boss needs, and we constantly highlight our virtues in search of a promotion. People like this don’t usually get good results, because with a good employee, it is usually the boss who does the sucking up to keep them in the company (it’s a question of mindset).
9. Politics.
Incredible as it may seem, talking about politics can be the last straw that puts you in line to leave the company. Some bosses (and people in general) defend their political ideology “to the death”, as if they were related to Zapatero or Rajoy (then Spain’s prime minister and opposition leader). That’s why you should avoid talking politics in the get-togethers that form both inside the company and outside it at any celebration. That way you can avoid being labelled a “red” or a “fascist”. There are many cases in Spanish companies where political ideology was the deciding reason for not renewing an employment contract, or at least that’s how the dismissed employee described it.
10. No reason at all.
Sometimes, as this crisis has shown, an employee is not fired for any particular reason. You can even be the most competent person in your company and still be let go. When a company cuts staff to balance costs and profits, it usually lets go of the employees who have been there the shortest time, because their severance pay will be much lower than what it would have to pay someone who has been there for 15 years.
That is why, sadly, a company sometimes gets rid of a good professional and keeps a somewhat more mediocre employee. It’s a very reasonable motive, although it would be worth examining whether the decision is the right one, because in times of crisis, saving money on professionals can end up costing you dearly.
Featured image: Scottish Government, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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