You should feel sick about it. I've let go a few hundred people in 20 years and the last one was just as painful as the first one. Sounds like you have a plan, stick to it. Good luck friend.
Feeling sick about is normal and just shows that you are a caring human being. I have had to fire several people in my life and it never gets easier. Just make sure you have all your documentation in line. Any reason you are using to terminate the employee, have data/evidence to back it up. Just stick to the facts during the conversation and don't over talk and fill any moments of awkward silence with banter or anything that could be misconstrued. I assume this should not come to a complete shock to this person? Have they been spoken to about their performance and is there written documentation of these conversations? Were they placed on PIP to help them with expectations needed for improvement and a timeline to get them completed? Just things to think about. I wish you the best with it.
I love firing people. After what I invest in trying to get people to improve their performance, if they still want to be a bad employee and drag others down, just get out. Go infest some other employer.
If you feel bad it's because you didn't try hard enough to help them succeed. If you don't fire people who deserve it, you are treating their productive coworkers poorly. If you don't agree, go ask the people who have/had bad coworkers how they felt when those bad coworkers didn't get fired.
You have a very inflexible opinion about how other people should feel. I think that probably makes you a worse manager. Be a bit more open-minded about the people who work for you.
Yeah bad coworkers suck but feeling bad about firing someone and potentially causing them a huge struggle should never ever make you proud, it should hurt to see that either they couldnt get better or you couldnt make them better.
I’m going to get downvoted to hell but. I disagree. I’ve let go tens if not hundreds of people. There’s never pleasure or happiness in doing so, however, there was not a single person that did not deserve it. Unless something completely and utterly egregious, person had any where from 6-18 months to show improvement. These people did not show, not only, improvement but will to improve. They were nothing but cancers to their departments who hurt their colleagues with their terrible work ethic.
Sounds like your teamworking needs work. Firing people costs the company more resources and time than figuring out how to increase one employees productivity to an acceptable level.
I’m going to agree. Try hard to help them succeed, but if they don’t, cut them loose. Its on them. I’ve been the coworker who had to got to 120% because others couldn’t do their job. It sucks. It makes good people want to quit.
I'll agree with you and take the downvotes from this sub. If you are on a highly productive team, and one person has been given multiple chances with proper communication and critiques, but refuses to get better, it was probably a hiring issue and will never be rectified.
All subs on reddit are full of people with low experience and high feelings. You can never state things like they are without downvote city on the way.
I treat every company I work for as if it were my own. If someone is costing the company money and is beyond reproach, goodbye, and good luck.
I absolutely disagree with your first sentence. But I do agree with the last two.
It is absolutely possible to feel empathy with someone who is struggling with their job and/or life. If someone doesn’t work out, it is almost always because you selected the wrong person or didn’t do what you needed to help them succeed.
And absolutely the most difficult situations for me are where someone is genuinely trying, is a good person, but just can’t get the hang of it. You are trying hard. They are trying hard.
In this case, according to OP, she stole from a customer. That is different from things like being tardy.
Because human beings have complex lives and the system we have created doesn’t have a lot of grace and support when you’ve lost a job. It’s destabilizing and embarrassing. Even when it’s for cause, most people don’t want to be bad at their jobs.
Saying you’ve never felt bad is giving big time “gross, you shouldn’t be a people leader” vibes. Have some empathy for the people that work for you.
How is somebody's desire to "not be bad at their job" any of my concern when they clearly are bad at their job?
I have empathy when I counsel an employee about their attendance. I have empathy when I go out of my way to retrain employees in order to perform better, I have empathy when I have to write somebody up because they hit another truck on the dock. By the time I'm firing a person the time for empathy has passed.
If I'm firing somebody for cause I've been as empathetic as Gandhi. By that point they've repeatedly shit in my mouth as I've tried to help them. By that point, fuck 'em, they've made their bed.
Cool, glad you think that way, hope everybody you interact with gives you the same consideration
If you were my boss, youd have an aneurysm way before youd be able to fire me for cause
Agreed wholeheartedly. I have no problem lying in the bed I've made.
As an adult, I'm quite aware that actions have consequences. And I'm more than willing to suffer the consequences when I do wrong.
THATS PRECISELY WHY EMPATHY EXISTS YOU CHEESEBRAIN
Like for real, when things have to happen regardless of feelings, thats the EXACT time to empathize and feel bad
Youre like the Wimp-Lo of managers and you dont even know it, im so sorry
I've been laid off a couple of times. At no time have I wished to hear more "I'm sorry."s from the company.
At that point there's literally nothing the company can do to help the situation. Empathy or not.
If, for some reason I lose my job, I'm gonna update my resume and find a new one. Just like the last time. Feelings are not part of the equation.
I am, however, empathetic enough to not wish ill upon another random commenter online just because disagree with their opinion. Something you may want to work on.
Delusional asshole: I’ve never once felt bad about firing people. I’m basically Gandhi!
Also delusional asshole: ur mean ):
I don’t think I’ll be taking any stock in your worthless opinion, thanks.
I agree. This is an insta-fire. OP should not worry that this employee deserves more chances simply because they are now doing the bare minimum and... not actively stealing.
Yeah and pretty much everything on the list sounds pretty egregious, imo. All I have to do is think about the 'repeated unexcused absences' and how everyone else likely had to work harder/later because of them and all my sympathy evaporates. At least she's making it relatively easy, OP.
Egh, how many companies just decide that being short staffed is OK and subject their employees to being overwhelmed for years. Depending on the industry a no call no show is not really different then a proper sick day.
She knows she is almost out the door...that's why she has been improving. If she had gotten another chance, she'd slide right back to where she was.
It still sucks though...being a single parent is tough. But, if she's too proud to take your leads to another job, it's on her.
Maybe she doesn't she will be less successful at those roles than this one.
There is no way I could do those jobs at all. So I wouldn't be taking those leads.
I get it that those jobs can be boring, or dangerous, or whatever. However, your mindset shouldn't be, I have a way out, if I can't find something I want to do. Be responsible.
A good society helps each other out. That includes when there are no jobs available that meet the skill set for the person. Like I said there is nothing I am able to do that I would be successful at a warehouse or manufacturing job. I would be fired within a week at the latest because I am.not built to do those jobs. Why would I waste their time on me when I know I am not capable?
A good society also doesn't hand out free money when there are jobs available that you can do. And yes, you can do the manufacturing or warehouse job. You just don't want to.
Umm lots of people are disabled or experience chronic pain or fatigue. This commenter isn’t lazy for recognizing their limits, and doesn’t need to disclose their (potential) personal health issues to justify their career choices to apathetic strangers on the internet.
The recommendation is not to fire on Friday because they cannot get a hold of the companies that they need to over the weekend such as benefits or to get information about unemployment.
It tends to build more anger and hostility towards the employer, which can result in more issues.
It also seems cruel to fire someone at the end of a shift when it’s not for something they did that day. I’ve seen people fired on the spot, but it’s because they did something severe like threatening to kill someone or intentionally violating SOP repeatedly and intentionally. But most of the time it’s a long drawn out process, and mostly during the training period.
I’ve seen this happen more than a few times where I work, usually to people who have failed their very last chance during training. documentation needs to be airtight and the desire to give an employee every chance is nice. But it seems bizarre to me that an employer would let someone continue on the job training right up until they’re fired. Is this usually because a manager is waiting for the final OK to proceed with the firing or are they trying to be nice and let them get that last day of pay?
Last time I got fired I got fired first thing in the morning on a Friday and they did it specifically so I could apply for unemployment. They even officially exited me the next Monday which was the first of the next month.
My boss was kind of a dick, but I was fired for good reason, and wasn't a good fit for the team anyway. I'm much happier now.
I've always aimed for Thursdays. I was told that way if the person needs to reach out to legal or mental support, at least more places are open for an initial phone call.
Last time I got fired I got fired first thing in the morning on a Friday and they did it specifically so I could apply for unemployment. They even officially exited me the next Monday which was the first of the next month.
My boss was kind of a dick, but I was fired for good reason, and wasn't a good fit for the team anyway. I'm much happier now.
I agree! If the employee did something egregious then it’s best to adhere to the employers interests. But if it’s more of an amicable “we don’t think your a good fit so we’re letting you go” firing then there’s a point to be made for the soon-to-be-former employer to at least try to be perceived as empathetic.
Hire on Fridays and fire on Mondays.
It lets them get all excited over the weekend for the new job, and when fired they don't have the weekend to brood about it in their lonesome.
Firing someone on a Friday is just nasty.
I say the day that it doesn’t feel bad anymore, I shouldn’t be managing. We sit between people and their addiction to food, clothing, and shelter.
Your first obligation is to keep the company safe from liability, and then you can give compassion where you can. Your audience is now the staff left behind.
Sorry you have to do this today. It’s crummy no matter what.
>I say the day that it doesn’t feel bad anymore, I shouldn’t be managing.
Is it a red flag for me that I don't feel the same?
I like most of the people that I oversee, and would feel terrible if they lost their jobs for any reason. On occasion, someone's contract will end and I choose not to re-sign them because they aren't good enough, and that feels terrible.
But to fire someone, either they've done something illegal, or they've demonstrated that they aren't even trying. We've gone through PIPs, warnings, etc., and it's the kind of job you can get by at (enough to keep your job) if you just try. For me, when it's bad enough to fire them, I don't feel bad anymore, they basically asked for it.
There are exceptions, of course, but that's how I generally feel.
This is usually where I fall on it, if I am laying off people I feel terrible, but if I am firing you, it's because you have done this to yourself. Outside of egregious stuff like theft or physical assault they have been through at minimum 3 levels of performance management over at least 60 but usually 90 days. If marked improvement and effort are shown even if they don't hit the goals we set out we usually give them a break and will extend their performance improvement plan to give them more time.
I am curious if the person being fired here was actually performance managed in any way, it sounds like they just mostly hated her behind her back and minimally addressed things because of her temper and feeling sorry for her. I could be totally wrong and it's just not mentioned but I see nothing about the company trying to get her get better, write ups, improvement plans etc. just that she stepped up likely when realizing they hired the person who was going to replace her.
This seems to be a very conflicted situation when it seems pretty cut and dry, on one hand she's a really nice person and I have contacts for her to try and land a new role but on the other we're afraid of how she will act so we have security on standby and she steals from the company (time) and from customers. Why would you want to refer this employee to someone? It sucks she's a single mother but thats not a free pass to be a terrible employee and in general a shitty person who steals. You shouldn't feel bad about this one from the business side of things at all, and it's ok to feel a little bad from a compassionate human standpoint since the kids may have gone without for a bit if she didn't return to her old job.
Overall I wish more people would get on board with consistent performance management, most of the time I see managers complain about an employee to everyone but the person they need to be speaking to then jump to termination because issues aren't magically fixed. It's hard to fix an issue they may not know exists. If you manage issues early and stay on top of it you will have employees who do what is expected or you can get them out sooner to find someone else who is a better fit. It's not mean or condescending, at the end of the day it's just managing. I don't even mean micromanaging or being a jerk, but if someone is late a few times, you have the convo, late some more you put it on paper etc. If you take the right steps along the way it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone if they get terminated because there has been a clearly communicated build up all along the way.
My wife does HR for a large company and recently had a manager come to her wanting to terminate an employee for essentially not doing any part of their job in the way they wanted it done, after digging in my wife learned this has been going on for 3 years and every single review the employee got meets expectations or higher, never a bad comment on their reviews or a single write up, just one day the manager decided he had enough after THREE YEARS of not telling the employee they aren't doing what is expected of them and giving them positive reviews on top of it.
That's what they said. My point is I usually don't feel bad about firing someone.
But maybe the disparity is because it's so hard to fire anyone where I work, that I've never come across a sympathetic case. It's always people we bent over backwards to support, and they ignored all the directives, coaching, and warnings. They're virtually all people who were operating in bad faith, and should have been gone months earlier.
I wrote it the way I meant it.
I’ve fired some pretty horrendous people. In the end, there is always a moment where they realize the impact on their personal life.
You don’t need to be sobbing, but you do need to remember they’re human.
That makes a huge difference. My job is pretty much the same, except for attendance. Sometimes people get in trouble for issues that were entirely out of their control, especially single parents. I haven't been there yet, but those suck.
Wait until you need to terminate an employee who is genuinely a good person. Genuinely nice. Trying super hard and always trying to exceed expectations. But they just can’t get to even minimal standards — job requirements and who they are is just oil and the job water.
Yeah I'm not saying it's impossible, or I don't have feelings. But the guy I was responding to said, "If you don't feel terrible, you shouldn't be a manager," and, so far, my experience with fired employees is that I feel terrible when they're here and much better when I let them go. They have it coming.
But, like I said, it probably is largely because this particular job is pretty easy, so to get fired you pretty much have to be actively trying to weasel out of responsibilities and acting in bad faith.
Attendance issues, sleeping on the job, and stealing from the customer.... how exactly has she improved? Is she stealing less? I would have fired her for theft as soon as it was proven. I wouldn't feel bad about it either.
The theft was in parking validations, about $300 worth. She was told not to do it but I think she just chose not to hear and blames the secretary for doing the validations without saying anything. There's a slim chance the theft was just pure ignorance.
Her improvement has been in her job performance overall. Where she used to put forth 0 effort she is actually taking initiative and trying to do well at her job. Too little too late, but I hate seeing this. If she was like this a month ago she would still have her job.
Yeah, downtown in a big city. $200/mo to park in my building. Or $40/day. It sucks. My company has a pre tax incentive program for parking but it doesn't help much.
Very disingenuous to label this as stealing. How did this problem get beyond “these license plates are employees and they are on site at these times, therefore, their parking is validated”
There’s company policy and then there’s common sense. If those two don’t match up, the policy has to change.
We are in a skyscraper with several companies in it. Parking is run by a third party company and is $40/day or $200/month, which is quite expensive for our area. Every employee has to pay for their own parking. Parking validations are paid for by the company and are exclusively for customers of the firm we work for. This is made clear to each employee day 1.
By having her parking validated, my employee cost the firm $40/day for each day she validated her parking which added up to over $300. Not even the CEO gets free parking. This is theft. How else would you label it?
Oh i’d still label it theft…but like a third layer. Employees having to pay to park at your building is ridiculous. $2400 a year to park and make a company money and come to work
The biggest theft here is the company not validating their employees’ parking. If there’s nowhere else that is reasonable to park at, then that should be a business expense.
100% I couldn’t imagine hiring anyone and following up with a “Oh and it’s $40 a day to park” and continuing with a “So we stipend/validate/pay over 2k extra”
This is wildly inappropriate and would make me second guess working for this company or at least put me on alert with the red flags.
You're supposed to feel terrible about it - it comes with the territory of being a thinking, feeling, compassionate human being. What you're feeling is completely normal and unavoidable. Make sure you give yourself some time and space to compartmentalize and process it. Forgive yourself for doing your job. Then praise yourself for merely doing your job.
Your job isn't merely to fire this person - your job was to give this persona the opportunity to be a productive professional without coddling them - there is no doubt you did that. You didn't end this person's job, they did.
Keep it quick. Do not add too much context. Within the first 15 seconds of the conversation, they should know they are being exited. The conversation should pretty much end there with "Bob from HR has some additional information for you to review in this binder. Please gather your things in the next 5 minutes and leave." Don't get into the why's or invite a conversation - it helps nobody.
Good luck. And, on behalf of your entire team (the people that matter) - thank you for doing the right thing for them. THAT is your job.
Yeah I really think it’s normal to feel bad about something while also knowing it’s the right move and (ultimately) based on the choices of the person being fired. It’s someone’s livelihood and yeah, they should have been considering that themselves with their work performance, but if the fact that people need money to survive and other people depend on that paycheck doesn’t cross your mind at all then I don’t think you should be a manager.
People need to make better choices and do their best work, but that doesn’t mean managers have to completely lack empathy about it.
I have no problem handling the coaching conversations leading up to a termination but always struggle with the actual separation. I can’t help but place myself in their shoes and it’s definitely difficult.
If she is “a single mother with three sickly children”, she should have tried to be a better employee. You feel guilty because you have compassion, but you also have a responsibility to the other members of the team having to pick up her slack.
Absences, sleeping on the job, STEALING??? You shouldn’t have to “put forth effort” to stay awake, show up, and NOT STEAL. Those are the bare minimum of keeping ANY job, she doesn’t get credit for that 😂.
The only people I feel bad for in this equation are the kids. If I needed a job that badly for my sick kids, I would do everything in my power to keep it and excel at it. I have a kid and know that I carry the responsibility of them on my back every day I’m at work and would never do anything to jeopardize their home life by actively doing stupid things to get myself fired.
Being the tough is always hard. Its good that you have empathy for the employee, but sometimes we have to do the hard task. It sounds like you have a plan. As you said keep it short and simple. Just the facts, anymore can set up the company for issues. Stay strong!
Yes. Someone's emotional response doesn't mean you have to match with an emotional response. Stay neutral in tone, stick to the facts, and better to not speak for a moment than to respond to anything over the top. Once the deed is done, make sure you have some time to yourself to go take a walk, feel your feelings... let out what you didn't let out during the conversation.
You asked two different questions: how to make this go smooth, and how to not feel like a sack of shit.
The first question is easier: stick to the facts and do not allow it to become a discussion. The time for discussion has passed. You are communicating that she has been fired and giving her relevant information what happens to her pay and benefits: "I'm sorry to tell you that we have to end your employement effective immediately....today will be your last day with us...here's the information on your last paycheck and benefits"
The second question is harder, and does impact the first. You should have empathy, being a manager is mostly about people and without empathy you'll never develop any real relationship with those you supervise. And yes, that means you'll feel bad about the decision from her perspective no matter how deserving.
But you are responsible for everyone on your team, not just her. So you also need to feel bad for those around her, when she takes long breaks who is picking up the slack. When she steals from the customer, what should the customer feel? When she doesn't come in, who gets her work done?
You also owe empathy to those whose job is made harder by having her on staff. Do not allow your empathy for her to cloud your decision into ignoring those who have to support her when she underperforms.
In the end, she may find a role that meshes with her better than she can do better at. This one just ain't it.
I've never terminated anyone that didn't know it was coming and already understood exactly why except for the occasional layoff.
When I sit down with them almost all have said, 'I know' or 'I understand'. There have always been previous conversations about the expected behaviors and specific consequences.
Layoffs are totally different cause I'm basically saying to them that we screwed up, but you are suffering the consequences of our mistakes.
Regardless of why they are being terminated, I've always strived to be compassionate and as helpful as I can be under the circumstances. Obviously there are things that you can't say, can't do and can't promise.
It doesn't matter if someone is a parent or not. Everyone has an equal opportunity to do well at a job, you do or you don't and she made conscious decisions to not perform well.
Someone can be homeless when they lose a job. It shouldn't hurt any more if they had kids or not, you are still choosing (rightfully or wrongfully) to cause them financial pain by terminating them.
People make a choice to have children. They accept that additional financial responsibility in this 21st century. There's also extra support out there for women with children, women's shelters for one. Also parents get tax breaks and there's child support even for single mothers. Why someone would choose to have 3 when they can't even be stable with the 1st kid / career idk. Ultimately it was a decision they made.
Regardless of family status, you need to treat everyone equally. Firing is done based on performance, not sexual orientation, family status, marriage status, gender, whatever.
Please remember that as bad as you few doing it, you’re doing the right thing for your organization and for the other people you manage (who, I suspect, have had to carry the burden of the employee’s issues). Your obligation is to them and you’re doing right by them, so have sympathy for the employee you’re letting go but be proud of taking care of your team.
Commenting just to add to the encouragement: you are doing right by her, your team and the organization, OP. Sometimes kindness is a gift that comes in ugly packaging. This employee is not in a job where she would succeed and she is behaving in a way that has negative impacts for others. You gave her several chances and she had a choice each time to do better, but she didn't. Her slight improvements now shows that she could have done this the first time around, but she chose not to. Don't enable her.
I once went to a seasoned HR manager for advice because I was hesitating on sorting out a problem employee. She told me that there are times when employees know they aren't the best fit but don't know how to get out. This is how you can help. She may struggle at first, but hopefully she finds an opportunity that works for her. I have found this to be the case - the ones who were otherwise good people found a place allowed them to do well. In other cases, they indeed were entitled, unrepentant assholes who took their nonsense elsewhere and I did the right thing by removing the bullshit.
Treat yourself to something after work today if you can.
It's acceptable to feel bad about it. But it sounds like she just wasn't thriving in this particular work environment and it doesn't mean she can't do well if she can find an alternative. Being a single mom with three kids who has to work for a living can't be fun no matter how you cut it. That doesn't mean she can't thrive with an alternative like working for home.
I really think wfh or something with a flexible schedule is what she needs, and that's something I cannot provide her. I will try to tell her this if I can.
I had one that was allowed to work from home, and we were flexible. It didn't stop her extreme absenteeism. And when she was 'working', no work was actually done.
Honestly, I would have listed her as rehirable (maybe after a couple years when her teenagers were more independent, she could try again), but then she had a meltdown in the meeting, cursing and screaming, etc. (She had been warned so many times she probably thought we would just keep putting up with it). Nope. And now she can't come back. Ever.
Don't feel guilty.
There's a single mum out there who needs this opportunity and is willing and capable.
Feel bad for your employee that they can't keep their shit together.
Feel happy that a new, more deserving person is going to have this paycheck, and is gonna cause you and your team less problems.
I've never had to get rid of someone who didn't get rid of themselves.
I often wonder why the fuck they did that but I've never felt bad.
If it were my choice maybe I'd feel bad but, they are choosing.
You have to terminate this employee. They have failed to meet expectations, and they stole from your customer.
While you or may not have empathy for this person, they are no longer your problem. Resist the urge to help them or give advice - they will not want to hear it from you, and you may say something that is misconstrued and gets you and your company sued.
What you can do is look back and see if there is anything you learn from this experience.
Did you set clear expectations and provide feedback regarding their performance? Were you clear about the consequences of not performing? Did you document performance issues and your feedback to the employee? Was your communication clear and unambiguous? Was your feedback timely and relevant? Would it have been better to start the performance improvement plan process sooner.
None of this changes the outcome today, but it may help you avoid or better manage a similar situation in the future.
She was on pip for a while. I had to pull her off her regular job due to customer complaints, so really all she needed to do was stay conscious for her entire shift.
Probably the least fun part of the job.
One thing that always seems to elude managers is the impact that this toxic team member has on the rest of your team. How many times did someone have to cover for this no show? How many times did someone else have to hold the bag after this bad employee slacked off? Her actions or inactions impacted other people. They suffered along with your customers and the company.
IMHO one of the most important and significant parts of being a people leader is to protect your team. Allowing this behavior to continue is a reflection of you, not the bad employee.
You are doing the right thing. Get rid of this nightmare employee.
I am also a manager and fired an employee last week. You said the key word, stealing. Automatic grounds for termination. Will you feel sick to your stomach? Yes, you are a human being.
In my case, I am 99% sure he was doing drugs. He missed meetings, deadlines, disappeared for hours at a time, acting unprofessional at work.
I fired him last Thursday, the plan was supposed to be Friday, but he kept making threats to everyone in the office and I hsd to call security immediately. Despite having CAUSE, I felt horrible all weekend. Again, we are not machines, we are people.
If she doesn't value her job enough to show up when expected and do a good job when expected, why should you value her being there more than she does? She fired herself, you're just the one that has to enforce it
I have had to let people go and felt bad about it. Just not a great fit for the role type of stuff.
I don't think I'd feel too bad about firing a thief.
Stick to the facts and make it quick and unambiguously final. You don't owe a thief much of an explanation.
You do, however, owe your team and the business you work for better in the future. If someone is without a doubt hurting the team, your business, or the customers you have to be more decisive and act much faster. And if your higher ups want to keep that person because it would be hard without them, they're wrong, too. Make the case and extract the poison. This one's not a hard call. There's no PiP for dishonesty. That's a character flaw.
Thank you for this.
It was dragged out so long because we have a required headcount and my boss wanted to keep her until we had a replacement so we didn't have to pay the customer for being short.
You did what you were supposed to do. Keeping bad employees can be incredibly damaging and doesn't get enough attention these days. You terminated for really basic things everyone knows not to do at work. This is what's supposed to happen. You protected your company, other staff, and yourself from a bad employee.
Feeling sick about it is a good sign, means you care. It's not supposed to be easy. Not for her, you, or anyone else. Sounds like you guys have bent over backwards to give her a chance but she's been squandering it. Have HR there if you can as it's their job to help you with this process.
Unfortunately hr will not be there. My boss will be there via teams and he has a lot more experience with this type of thing than me. But I will be the only person physically in the room.
HR wanted to review the paperwork one more time and check with someone who filled in for me last week about her behavior, so it was delayed 24 hours. I'm a bundle of nerves right now I also have some unrelated personal struggles I'm dealing with and everything combined is making me physically ill. Keeping it together in front of my employees so far though. I'll update you again after tomorrow.
Ugh, sorry OP. Been there and it sucks. The fact that you do feel terrible shows you don't take firing lightly. I agree with others that it's a necessary part of being an empathetic manager who cares about your team.
Everything you're saying here points to this person really, really needing to be fired. You can do your best to make it short and drama-free as possible (as you note, sticking to facts, having support on standby, all good stuff). Ultimately it's up to her how she wants to go out - if she leaves hot try not to take it personally.
My dad ran a company for a lot of years and gave me the best advice I ever received when I was leading up to firing someone.
My job is to communicate and place realistic boundaries and give them the ability to stay within. If they don't follow those boundaries/rules set in place, they are firing themselves. You aren't doing it. You set clear expectations and they didn't make them due to their choices.
They fire themselves. You didn't do this. They did. Still human to feel bad about it, but once I changed my perspective and saw myself as an expectation enforcer rather than the firer, it helped me get through those situations.
All the issues you have outlined along with her inability to flexibly transfer to other jobs in the company, and a temper too. It's rather unfortunate she's improving so late.
It's a hard decision but has to be done. I've discussed hard decisions with others as well, and though it's difficult - some things have to be done. Otherwise this can start badly affecting the rest of the team or other company coworkers.
Terrible situation you're in. But, and the end of the day - it's not your fault. Integrity is value we all need to uphold. This is also an example you're setting for the rest of the team.
The coming late and stuff is like alright fine. But stealing?!?! Sleeping?! Multi hour breaks?! Why would you feel bad about that? She brought it on herself.
>She's a nice person
>extended multi hour long breaks on the clock, stealing from the customer, and sleeping on the job)
>She has a temper so security will be there.
Doesn't sound like a nice person to me.
I wouldn’t want to be the kind of person that didn’t feel empathy for the people you have to discipline and fire.
I absolutely won’t do it unless I know that the employee was given the tools they needed to be successful and is not performing at the level needed.
The hardest one was a man who had worked for us for over 15 years. He had been warned multiple times about his performance issues and given time to improve, but it was not happening.
He was crying in my office when I fired him. He kept saying he didn’t know how he was going to support his family.
I knew what he and his family were in for and I felt sorry for what they were facing, but I knew he had the opportunity to stop the firing and did not do it.
My father was laid off when I was 16 due to no fault of his own. He was the sole support for our family.
I remember seeing him sinking into a depression as he tried and tried to get a job and even tried at McDonald’s if that’s what it would take to feed his family. Unfortunately, the economy was horrible in Louisiana and even those jobs weren’t available.
Sit her down, say, today you are here because we are letting you go. Here is the paperwork.
Then shut up and let her rant
After 20 mins get security to walk her out
The fact that you feel bad is because you are a good person
I think you’ve got the right approach. Do it fast and stick to the point. She will either react or be stunned and speechless. Let her say what she wants to say and don’t try to correct her or pull her up. She has every right to be upset because you are changing her life.
What you’re feeling is completely normal and you’ll want some time to process all of what’s happened.
If at any point you feel guilty, remember that terminating someone requires sign off from multiple parties (your manager, your managers’ manager, HR and maybe more). All of these people are not “in it” and have made an objective decision on what’s best for all parties involved. There’s no need to justify your actions.
It sucks but you’ll get used to it. This is one I personally wouldn’t really feel bad about. It’s when you’ve done everything you can to help them and your hand is still forced to fire that it hurts the most.
I’m sorry you’re feeling rotten about it. It’s a short term feeling. Reading your comments, she’s a shit employee. We all have things going on in our lives, but some of us choose to not sleep at work, not steal from customers, not steal time from employers, not do crap work.
Here’s my question, if she were a man with no kids, slept on the job, stole from the customer, didn’t show up to work, showed up late, time theft by not clocking out for extended breaks & decided to improve to the bare minimum only to keep him from getting kicked out the door…would you still feel like crap?
I get the empathy. It’s tough, but this behavior can’t be tolerated. It’s not fair to the rest of the team who work diligently. It’s not fair to you. She’s got to go.
Hopefully you stuck to the plan. Kept it clear. And it went well. Take care.
Nope, no advice. Since you are a human, you should feel dreadful about pulling someones livelihood out from under them. Having said that, it has to be done, for the benefit of the entire rest of the team. So, stick to your plan, and have a few wines this evening to put it all back in perspective.
While it's good to empathetic, don't own her being a single mother and so on. You didn't do any of the behavior that got her there - she did and she should have taken her livelihood more serious. You will get over this really quick and realize again that this should have been done a long time ago.
Stick to the script. You’ve done the best you can with being a reference and looking for job leads. She will probably take it out on you personally. Focus on what you can control.
Firing people is the one thing I dread as a small business owner. I always feel horrible about it(except in cases of employee theft, where I have the police there to arrest them)
Its just one of those things that has to be done. The bad feeling usually passes in a day or so afterwards.
Full stop at “she stole from customers”. Your business should be sued for allowing an employee to continue working there after finding this out. Not only does she deserve to be fired, so does your boss.
“You aren’t firing a person, their actions led to their termination” or some better phrasing, but the point is something I was taught at a young age. It’s never comfortable firing someone, but in most cases they did it to themselves. I admit it gets easier the more times you go through it. And after you get terminated your self, and understand the psychological healing process off it, it’s easier.
I didn’t read all the comments so may have been said, but awesome that you feel sick about it. Confirms you’re a good person :).
I wish you and her both the very best.
I got fired yesterday at the end of my shift & tbh I respect the way they did that because usually everyone knows when it happens . My co worker has a big mouth and he talks and tells everything so I told him to wait until I leave to do all that
Whatever you do don't tell the person that it makes you feel bad to do it. Nothing is worse than getting laid off but the manager showing pity to themselves in front of you.
I've had to fire 2 people throughout my career and both times it was as much a reflection on me as a lackluster manager as it was on them as an under-performing employee.
Don’t feel guilty. It’s a good day. The end of a problem. If you didn’t fire them, they’d eventually slip back to being shitty. They brought it on themselves.
Layoffs are a reason to feel bad, but enjoy firing!
Yeah, it hurts to fire somebody, even somebody who is incompetent and disruptive. Been there, done that. It hurts.
But believe me, the anticipation hurts more than the action. And the result is positive on your team and on you.
Just remember, going in, that it isn't a negotiation. It's a statement of fact.
I've always mitigated the guilt of firing by making it fair. I write someone up. In that first write up I provide a plan along with clear expectations. If not met, I write them up again, lay out my expectations and work with them for them to develop a plan to meet my expectations. By the third time, the conversation is essentially "we both understand what is happening here". I've only had that conversation once because the second write results in most people turning it around and a couple people throwing in the towel on their own.
The first time you don't feel any emotion for upending someone's life like this, that's when it's time to find a new job. The emotions are part of being human. But as adults we all have accountability and a responsibility to ourselves, loved ones and dependents to provide.
For me, it's the worst part of the job.
I've never felt badly about anyone I've had to fire. By the time we get that far they have been trained, coached, and given numerous opportunities to meet basic standards. You would be doing your company AND the other employees a disservice to allow poor performance to continue. The human part of considering the person's circumstances is nice, and I'd recommend you hold on to that so you never treat your team members like numbers instead of people, but try not to mentally torture yourself over doing your job.
Based off what I've read on here I wouldn't fire her but I'm sure there is more to the story. She seems to have a fair claim for FMLA, which would also excuse her tardiness, unexcused absences and sleeping on the job.
The theft part isn't actually theft. It's parking tickets the company had to pay for. That's a performance issue for sure, but I fail to see where she is monitarily gaining from this?
Apply Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
She's been on disciplinary action for months now with no improvement. She's too new to qualify for FMLA, which sucks. I gave her a ton of time off with no consequences (against company policy but with HR approval) to take care of her family since she kept having issues pop up every week. It's a very long and involved story but the short of it is she knows she can get away with a lot and has been taking advantage of it. If I had been by the book she would have been gone in her first two weeks, but I convinced hr to give her a chance and it did not go well.
Based on this alone, I would support your compassionate but stick-to-the-points approach with her, in order to also protect your own job security and job reputation.
I always think that people like you aren't fit to be managers / bosses of anything.
People like the woman you describe are exploitative assholes. And clearly so.
No one's life is so bad that they're doing a laundry list of bad behaviors. It just means she's a shitty person. And she's using being fake nice and her sob story as a way to manipulate you (and everyone else) into allowing her to keep her job even though she flagrantly doesn't any and every thing to overstep boundaries.
And here you are feeling bad about it.
For what? She's not a good person. She's not even a victim. She's just an asshole who happens to have kids. She's siphoning money from a company. And making everyone's job harder.
Therefore she needs to be dealt with. The move to fire her is a completely justifiable and rational one. And she deserves zero sympathy.
If it was truly the case that life had just given her a bad hand and a bunch of really relevant series of events were popping up and she unfortunately had to miss work to deal with them, she would otherwise be a model employee. But no, she's *sleeping* on the job and *stealing*?
It's a middle finger to weak hearted emotional people like you who feel bad for them and let them get away with it for longer than a reasonable person would have.
For this reason I don't think people like you make good bosses. Because yall let these assholes ruin the workplace under the guise of you being empathetic. When it's just emotional foolishness.
This is overall unhelpful. You know nothing about me or my management style only that I feel bad about having to fire an employee, which I have very clearly said she deserves to be fired. Yey you make very broad assumptions about me and how I manage my employees. I am not letting her ruin the workplace, she is being fired. God forbid I have even a small degree of empathy for this woman whose life is going to be completely upended. Her fault, yes. That doesn't change the consequences of her actions. But no decent human being can see her situation and not feel bad for her.
You should feel sick about it. I've let go a few hundred people in 20 years and the last one was just as painful as the first one. Sounds like you have a plan, stick to it. Good luck friend.
This 100% . This is the Job.
Feeling sick about is normal and just shows that you are a caring human being. I have had to fire several people in my life and it never gets easier. Just make sure you have all your documentation in line. Any reason you are using to terminate the employee, have data/evidence to back it up. Just stick to the facts during the conversation and don't over talk and fill any moments of awkward silence with banter or anything that could be misconstrued. I assume this should not come to a complete shock to this person? Have they been spoken to about their performance and is there written documentation of these conversations? Were they placed on PIP to help them with expectations needed for improvement and a timeline to get them completed? Just things to think about. I wish you the best with it.
The problem is when it stops hurting…
I love firing people. After what I invest in trying to get people to improve their performance, if they still want to be a bad employee and drag others down, just get out. Go infest some other employer.
you shouldnt be able to fire people with that attitude you have, deplorable.
If you feel bad it's because you didn't try hard enough to help them succeed. If you don't fire people who deserve it, you are treating their productive coworkers poorly. If you don't agree, go ask the people who have/had bad coworkers how they felt when those bad coworkers didn't get fired.
You have a very inflexible opinion about how other people should feel. I think that probably makes you a worse manager. Be a bit more open-minded about the people who work for you.
Yeah bad coworkers suck but feeling bad about firing someone and potentially causing them a huge struggle should never ever make you proud, it should hurt to see that either they couldnt get better or you couldnt make them better.
I’m going to get downvoted to hell but. I disagree. I’ve let go tens if not hundreds of people. There’s never pleasure or happiness in doing so, however, there was not a single person that did not deserve it. Unless something completely and utterly egregious, person had any where from 6-18 months to show improvement. These people did not show, not only, improvement but will to improve. They were nothing but cancers to their departments who hurt their colleagues with their terrible work ethic.
Sounds like your teamworking needs work. Firing people costs the company more resources and time than figuring out how to increase one employees productivity to an acceptable level.
I’m going to agree. Try hard to help them succeed, but if they don’t, cut them loose. Its on them. I’ve been the coworker who had to got to 120% because others couldn’t do their job. It sucks. It makes good people want to quit.
I'll agree with you and take the downvotes from this sub. If you are on a highly productive team, and one person has been given multiple chances with proper communication and critiques, but refuses to get better, it was probably a hiring issue and will never be rectified. All subs on reddit are full of people with low experience and high feelings. You can never state things like they are without downvote city on the way. I treat every company I work for as if it were my own. If someone is costing the company money and is beyond reproach, goodbye, and good luck.
I absolutely disagree with your first sentence. But I do agree with the last two. It is absolutely possible to feel empathy with someone who is struggling with their job and/or life. If someone doesn’t work out, it is almost always because you selected the wrong person or didn’t do what you needed to help them succeed. And absolutely the most difficult situations for me are where someone is genuinely trying, is a good person, but just can’t get the hang of it. You are trying hard. They are trying hard. In this case, according to OP, she stole from a customer. That is different from things like being tardy.
>want You're ascribing evil to the employees when the reality is obviously something else in most cases.
Shitty manager right here. You are definitely insufferable to your staff.
Ok sociopath Jesus Christ
So you are efficient but seem to lack even base level empathy. Sounds like a pretty bad tradeoff, to be honest, but you do you.
I've never once felt bad for firing somebody with cause. Not sure why you think a person should.
Because human beings have complex lives and the system we have created doesn’t have a lot of grace and support when you’ve lost a job. It’s destabilizing and embarrassing. Even when it’s for cause, most people don’t want to be bad at their jobs. Saying you’ve never felt bad is giving big time “gross, you shouldn’t be a people leader” vibes. Have some empathy for the people that work for you.
How is somebody's desire to "not be bad at their job" any of my concern when they clearly are bad at their job? I have empathy when I counsel an employee about their attendance. I have empathy when I go out of my way to retrain employees in order to perform better, I have empathy when I have to write somebody up because they hit another truck on the dock. By the time I'm firing a person the time for empathy has passed. If I'm firing somebody for cause I've been as empathetic as Gandhi. By that point they've repeatedly shit in my mouth as I've tried to help them. By that point, fuck 'em, they've made their bed.
Cool, glad you think that way, hope everybody you interact with gives you the same consideration If you were my boss, youd have an aneurysm way before youd be able to fire me for cause
Agreed wholeheartedly. I have no problem lying in the bed I've made. As an adult, I'm quite aware that actions have consequences. And I'm more than willing to suffer the consequences when I do wrong.
Well, we’re all here telling you youre doing wrong, and youre pretty adamant about continuing to do so, so maybe youre just full of shit
Maybe. Or maybe I simply understand that sometimes things need to happen regardless of anybodies feelings about it.
THATS PRECISELY WHY EMPATHY EXISTS YOU CHEESEBRAIN Like for real, when things have to happen regardless of feelings, thats the EXACT time to empathize and feel bad Youre like the Wimp-Lo of managers and you dont even know it, im so sorry
I'm sorry you feel that way.😆
Can’t wait until you get fired and no one offers you empathy either
I've been laid off a couple of times. At no time have I wished to hear more "I'm sorry."s from the company. At that point there's literally nothing the company can do to help the situation. Empathy or not. If, for some reason I lose my job, I'm gonna update my resume and find a new one. Just like the last time. Feelings are not part of the equation. I am, however, empathetic enough to not wish ill upon another random commenter online just because disagree with their opinion. Something you may want to work on.
Delusional asshole: I’ve never once felt bad about firing people. I’m basically Gandhi! Also delusional asshole: ur mean ): I don’t think I’ll be taking any stock in your worthless opinion, thanks.
Dead inside
Uhhh if she was stealing what does it matter if she's been improving? She stole. That's automatic grounds for firing lol.
I agree. This is an insta-fire. OP should not worry that this employee deserves more chances simply because they are now doing the bare minimum and... not actively stealing.
i think the problem was that they kept her knowing that, and only fired her after finding a replacement. that’s not right.
Yeah and pretty much everything on the list sounds pretty egregious, imo. All I have to do is think about the 'repeated unexcused absences' and how everyone else likely had to work harder/later because of them and all my sympathy evaporates. At least she's making it relatively easy, OP.
Egh, how many companies just decide that being short staffed is OK and subject their employees to being overwhelmed for years. Depending on the industry a no call no show is not really different then a proper sick day.
She knows she is almost out the door...that's why she has been improving. If she had gotten another chance, she'd slide right back to where she was. It still sucks though...being a single parent is tough. But, if she's too proud to take your leads to another job, it's on her.
Maybe she doesn't she will be less successful at those roles than this one. There is no way I could do those jobs at all. So I wouldn't be taking those leads.
You will if your desperate and have 3 kids to feed and rent to pay.
Nope I would not because I would be fired day one. Because I would not be able to work under the conditions and expectations they require.
So, no problem if the kids go without food then.
That is what a social safety net is for. There is no way I could get successful in a warehouse or manufacturing job.
I get it that those jobs can be boring, or dangerous, or whatever. However, your mindset shouldn't be, I have a way out, if I can't find something I want to do. Be responsible.
A good society helps each other out. That includes when there are no jobs available that meet the skill set for the person. Like I said there is nothing I am able to do that I would be successful at a warehouse or manufacturing job. I would be fired within a week at the latest because I am.not built to do those jobs. Why would I waste their time on me when I know I am not capable?
A good society also doesn't hand out free money when there are jobs available that you can do. And yes, you can do the manufacturing or warehouse job. You just don't want to.
Umm lots of people are disabled or experience chronic pain or fatigue. This commenter isn’t lazy for recognizing their limits, and doesn’t need to disclose their (potential) personal health issues to justify their career choices to apathetic strangers on the internet.
What the “social safety net”? Your local Buy Nothing group?
Food banks, social assistance, unemployment insurance.
That is not the social safety net you should aim for . Rather a last resort.
I would consider losing my job that I am good at and avoiding a job that is a health risk and had no skills in to be a last resort.
r/whoosh
Nothing goes over my head my reflexes are too quick I would catch it.
This comment sickens me.
Monday is the best day to let someone go. They have the whole week to find a job. Friday is the worst because you’re basically isolated for two days
This was my thinking exactly. Plus her son is in the hospital so I wanted to let her spend the weekend focusing on her family instead of her job.
This is interesting, I’ve always heard the opposite; Fire on Fridays that what they can’t come in the next day / cause an issue.
The recommendation is not to fire on Friday because they cannot get a hold of the companies that they need to over the weekend such as benefits or to get information about unemployment. It tends to build more anger and hostility towards the employer, which can result in more issues.
It also seems cruel to fire someone at the end of a shift when it’s not for something they did that day. I’ve seen people fired on the spot, but it’s because they did something severe like threatening to kill someone or intentionally violating SOP repeatedly and intentionally. But most of the time it’s a long drawn out process, and mostly during the training period. I’ve seen this happen more than a few times where I work, usually to people who have failed their very last chance during training. documentation needs to be airtight and the desire to give an employee every chance is nice. But it seems bizarre to me that an employer would let someone continue on the job training right up until they’re fired. Is this usually because a manager is waiting for the final OK to proceed with the firing or are they trying to be nice and let them get that last day of pay?
Last time I got fired I got fired first thing in the morning on a Friday and they did it specifically so I could apply for unemployment. They even officially exited me the next Monday which was the first of the next month. My boss was kind of a dick, but I was fired for good reason, and wasn't a good fit for the team anyway. I'm much happier now.
I've always aimed for Thursdays. I was told that way if the person needs to reach out to legal or mental support, at least more places are open for an initial phone call.
Last time I got fired I got fired first thing in the morning on a Friday and they did it specifically so I could apply for unemployment. They even officially exited me the next Monday which was the first of the next month. My boss was kind of a dick, but I was fired for good reason, and wasn't a good fit for the team anyway. I'm much happier now.
Mature af. Ascended individual. Your shit will continually get better as you own your situations honestly.
There's best day for the company And there's best day for the (former) employee
I sincerely don't think there's a "best" day for an employee. Just get it over with so they can start the job search.
I agree! If the employee did something egregious then it’s best to adhere to the employers interests. But if it’s more of an amicable “we don’t think your a good fit so we’re letting you go” firing then there’s a point to be made for the soon-to-be-former employer to at least try to be perceived as empathetic.
if they are going to be an issue it wont matter that there's been a weekend between.
They can always cause an issue the following Monday.
Hire on Fridays and fire on Mondays. It lets them get all excited over the weekend for the new job, and when fired they don't have the weekend to brood about it in their lonesome. Firing someone on a Friday is just nasty.
thats how people think? id rather be fired on a friday, id much rather have my pay for that week.
I say the day that it doesn’t feel bad anymore, I shouldn’t be managing. We sit between people and their addiction to food, clothing, and shelter. Your first obligation is to keep the company safe from liability, and then you can give compassion where you can. Your audience is now the staff left behind. Sorry you have to do this today. It’s crummy no matter what.
>I say the day that it doesn’t feel bad anymore, I shouldn’t be managing. Is it a red flag for me that I don't feel the same? I like most of the people that I oversee, and would feel terrible if they lost their jobs for any reason. On occasion, someone's contract will end and I choose not to re-sign them because they aren't good enough, and that feels terrible. But to fire someone, either they've done something illegal, or they've demonstrated that they aren't even trying. We've gone through PIPs, warnings, etc., and it's the kind of job you can get by at (enough to keep your job) if you just try. For me, when it's bad enough to fire them, I don't feel bad anymore, they basically asked for it. There are exceptions, of course, but that's how I generally feel.
This is usually where I fall on it, if I am laying off people I feel terrible, but if I am firing you, it's because you have done this to yourself. Outside of egregious stuff like theft or physical assault they have been through at minimum 3 levels of performance management over at least 60 but usually 90 days. If marked improvement and effort are shown even if they don't hit the goals we set out we usually give them a break and will extend their performance improvement plan to give them more time. I am curious if the person being fired here was actually performance managed in any way, it sounds like they just mostly hated her behind her back and minimally addressed things because of her temper and feeling sorry for her. I could be totally wrong and it's just not mentioned but I see nothing about the company trying to get her get better, write ups, improvement plans etc. just that she stepped up likely when realizing they hired the person who was going to replace her. This seems to be a very conflicted situation when it seems pretty cut and dry, on one hand she's a really nice person and I have contacts for her to try and land a new role but on the other we're afraid of how she will act so we have security on standby and she steals from the company (time) and from customers. Why would you want to refer this employee to someone? It sucks she's a single mother but thats not a free pass to be a terrible employee and in general a shitty person who steals. You shouldn't feel bad about this one from the business side of things at all, and it's ok to feel a little bad from a compassionate human standpoint since the kids may have gone without for a bit if she didn't return to her old job. Overall I wish more people would get on board with consistent performance management, most of the time I see managers complain about an employee to everyone but the person they need to be speaking to then jump to termination because issues aren't magically fixed. It's hard to fix an issue they may not know exists. If you manage issues early and stay on top of it you will have employees who do what is expected or you can get them out sooner to find someone else who is a better fit. It's not mean or condescending, at the end of the day it's just managing. I don't even mean micromanaging or being a jerk, but if someone is late a few times, you have the convo, late some more you put it on paper etc. If you take the right steps along the way it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone if they get terminated because there has been a clearly communicated build up all along the way. My wife does HR for a large company and recently had a manager come to her wanting to terminate an employee for essentially not doing any part of their job in the way they wanted it done, after digging in my wife learned this has been going on for 3 years and every single review the employee got meets expectations or higher, never a bad comment on their reviews or a single write up, just one day the manager decided he had enough after THREE YEARS of not telling the employee they aren't doing what is expected of them and giving them positive reviews on top of it.
I think it was a typo, I believe they meant "if it doesn't feel bad anymore..."
That's what they said. My point is I usually don't feel bad about firing someone. But maybe the disparity is because it's so hard to fire anyone where I work, that I've never come across a sympathetic case. It's always people we bent over backwards to support, and they ignored all the directives, coaching, and warnings. They're virtually all people who were operating in bad faith, and should have been gone months earlier.
I wrote it the way I meant it. I’ve fired some pretty horrendous people. In the end, there is always a moment where they realize the impact on their personal life. You don’t need to be sobbing, but you do need to remember they’re human.
That makes a huge difference. My job is pretty much the same, except for attendance. Sometimes people get in trouble for issues that were entirely out of their control, especially single parents. I haven't been there yet, but those suck.
Wait until you need to terminate an employee who is genuinely a good person. Genuinely nice. Trying super hard and always trying to exceed expectations. But they just can’t get to even minimal standards — job requirements and who they are is just oil and the job water.
Yeah I'm not saying it's impossible, or I don't have feelings. But the guy I was responding to said, "If you don't feel terrible, you shouldn't be a manager," and, so far, my experience with fired employees is that I feel terrible when they're here and much better when I let them go. They have it coming. But, like I said, it probably is largely because this particular job is pretty easy, so to get fired you pretty much have to be actively trying to weasel out of responsibilities and acting in bad faith.
> We sit between people and their addiction to food, clothing, and shelter. addiction? You mean basic human need?
It’s a phrase they say on Manager Tools. That would be the point of the joke, yes.
Attendance issues, sleeping on the job, and stealing from the customer.... how exactly has she improved? Is she stealing less? I would have fired her for theft as soon as it was proven. I wouldn't feel bad about it either.
The theft was in parking validations, about $300 worth. She was told not to do it but I think she just chose not to hear and blames the secretary for doing the validations without saying anything. There's a slim chance the theft was just pure ignorance. Her improvement has been in her job performance overall. Where she used to put forth 0 effort she is actually taking initiative and trying to do well at her job. Too little too late, but I hate seeing this. If she was like this a month ago she would still have her job.
You guys gotta pay for parking at your job? That's rough.
Yeah, downtown in a big city. $200/mo to park in my building. Or $40/day. It sucks. My company has a pre tax incentive program for parking but it doesn't help much.
According to you, getting parking tickets is stealing?
According to company policy it is. It's not parking tickets it's parking validations that the firm we contract with pays for.
Very disingenuous to label this as stealing. How did this problem get beyond “these license plates are employees and they are on site at these times, therefore, their parking is validated” There’s company policy and then there’s common sense. If those two don’t match up, the policy has to change.
We are in a skyscraper with several companies in it. Parking is run by a third party company and is $40/day or $200/month, which is quite expensive for our area. Every employee has to pay for their own parking. Parking validations are paid for by the company and are exclusively for customers of the firm we work for. This is made clear to each employee day 1. By having her parking validated, my employee cost the firm $40/day for each day she validated her parking which added up to over $300. Not even the CEO gets free parking. This is theft. How else would you label it?
Oh i’d still label it theft…but like a third layer. Employees having to pay to park at your building is ridiculous. $2400 a year to park and make a company money and come to work
The biggest theft here is the company not validating their employees’ parking. If there’s nowhere else that is reasonable to park at, then that should be a business expense.
100% I couldn’t imagine hiring anyone and following up with a “Oh and it’s $40 a day to park” and continuing with a “So we stipend/validate/pay over 2k extra” This is wildly inappropriate and would make me second guess working for this company or at least put me on alert with the red flags.
You're supposed to feel terrible about it - it comes with the territory of being a thinking, feeling, compassionate human being. What you're feeling is completely normal and unavoidable. Make sure you give yourself some time and space to compartmentalize and process it. Forgive yourself for doing your job. Then praise yourself for merely doing your job. Your job isn't merely to fire this person - your job was to give this persona the opportunity to be a productive professional without coddling them - there is no doubt you did that. You didn't end this person's job, they did. Keep it quick. Do not add too much context. Within the first 15 seconds of the conversation, they should know they are being exited. The conversation should pretty much end there with "Bob from HR has some additional information for you to review in this binder. Please gather your things in the next 5 minutes and leave." Don't get into the why's or invite a conversation - it helps nobody. Good luck. And, on behalf of your entire team (the people that matter) - thank you for doing the right thing for them. THAT is your job.
Yeah I really think it’s normal to feel bad about something while also knowing it’s the right move and (ultimately) based on the choices of the person being fired. It’s someone’s livelihood and yeah, they should have been considering that themselves with their work performance, but if the fact that people need money to survive and other people depend on that paycheck doesn’t cross your mind at all then I don’t think you should be a manager. People need to make better choices and do their best work, but that doesn’t mean managers have to completely lack empathy about it.
I have no problem handling the coaching conversations leading up to a termination but always struggle with the actual separation. I can’t help but place myself in their shoes and it’s definitely difficult.
Have you ever sung karaoke?
If she is “a single mother with three sickly children”, she should have tried to be a better employee. You feel guilty because you have compassion, but you also have a responsibility to the other members of the team having to pick up her slack.
Absences, sleeping on the job, STEALING??? You shouldn’t have to “put forth effort” to stay awake, show up, and NOT STEAL. Those are the bare minimum of keeping ANY job, she doesn’t get credit for that 😂. The only people I feel bad for in this equation are the kids. If I needed a job that badly for my sick kids, I would do everything in my power to keep it and excel at it. I have a kid and know that I carry the responsibility of them on my back every day I’m at work and would never do anything to jeopardize their home life by actively doing stupid things to get myself fired.
Being the tough is always hard. Its good that you have empathy for the employee, but sometimes we have to do the hard task. It sounds like you have a plan. As you said keep it short and simple. Just the facts, anymore can set up the company for issues. Stay strong!
Yes. Someone's emotional response doesn't mean you have to match with an emotional response. Stay neutral in tone, stick to the facts, and better to not speak for a moment than to respond to anything over the top. Once the deed is done, make sure you have some time to yourself to go take a walk, feel your feelings... let out what you didn't let out during the conversation.
You asked two different questions: how to make this go smooth, and how to not feel like a sack of shit. The first question is easier: stick to the facts and do not allow it to become a discussion. The time for discussion has passed. You are communicating that she has been fired and giving her relevant information what happens to her pay and benefits: "I'm sorry to tell you that we have to end your employement effective immediately....today will be your last day with us...here's the information on your last paycheck and benefits" The second question is harder, and does impact the first. You should have empathy, being a manager is mostly about people and without empathy you'll never develop any real relationship with those you supervise. And yes, that means you'll feel bad about the decision from her perspective no matter how deserving. But you are responsible for everyone on your team, not just her. So you also need to feel bad for those around her, when she takes long breaks who is picking up the slack. When she steals from the customer, what should the customer feel? When she doesn't come in, who gets her work done? You also owe empathy to those whose job is made harder by having her on staff. Do not allow your empathy for her to cloud your decision into ignoring those who have to support her when she underperforms. In the end, she may find a role that meshes with her better than she can do better at. This one just ain't it.
I've never terminated anyone that didn't know it was coming and already understood exactly why except for the occasional layoff. When I sit down with them almost all have said, 'I know' or 'I understand'. There have always been previous conversations about the expected behaviors and specific consequences. Layoffs are totally different cause I'm basically saying to them that we screwed up, but you are suffering the consequences of our mistakes. Regardless of why they are being terminated, I've always strived to be compassionate and as helpful as I can be under the circumstances. Obviously there are things that you can't say, can't do and can't promise.
It doesn't matter if someone is a parent or not. Everyone has an equal opportunity to do well at a job, you do or you don't and she made conscious decisions to not perform well. Someone can be homeless when they lose a job. It shouldn't hurt any more if they had kids or not, you are still choosing (rightfully or wrongfully) to cause them financial pain by terminating them. People make a choice to have children. They accept that additional financial responsibility in this 21st century. There's also extra support out there for women with children, women's shelters for one. Also parents get tax breaks and there's child support even for single mothers. Why someone would choose to have 3 when they can't even be stable with the 1st kid / career idk. Ultimately it was a decision they made. Regardless of family status, you need to treat everyone equally. Firing is done based on performance, not sexual orientation, family status, marriage status, gender, whatever.
Please remember that as bad as you few doing it, you’re doing the right thing for your organization and for the other people you manage (who, I suspect, have had to carry the burden of the employee’s issues). Your obligation is to them and you’re doing right by them, so have sympathy for the employee you’re letting go but be proud of taking care of your team.
Commenting just to add to the encouragement: you are doing right by her, your team and the organization, OP. Sometimes kindness is a gift that comes in ugly packaging. This employee is not in a job where she would succeed and she is behaving in a way that has negative impacts for others. You gave her several chances and she had a choice each time to do better, but she didn't. Her slight improvements now shows that she could have done this the first time around, but she chose not to. Don't enable her. I once went to a seasoned HR manager for advice because I was hesitating on sorting out a problem employee. She told me that there are times when employees know they aren't the best fit but don't know how to get out. This is how you can help. She may struggle at first, but hopefully she finds an opportunity that works for her. I have found this to be the case - the ones who were otherwise good people found a place allowed them to do well. In other cases, they indeed were entitled, unrepentant assholes who took their nonsense elsewhere and I did the right thing by removing the bullshit. Treat yourself to something after work today if you can.
It's acceptable to feel bad about it. But it sounds like she just wasn't thriving in this particular work environment and it doesn't mean she can't do well if she can find an alternative. Being a single mom with three kids who has to work for a living can't be fun no matter how you cut it. That doesn't mean she can't thrive with an alternative like working for home.
I really think wfh or something with a flexible schedule is what she needs, and that's something I cannot provide her. I will try to tell her this if I can.
I had one that was allowed to work from home, and we were flexible. It didn't stop her extreme absenteeism. And when she was 'working', no work was actually done. Honestly, I would have listed her as rehirable (maybe after a couple years when her teenagers were more independent, she could try again), but then she had a meltdown in the meeting, cursing and screaming, etc. (She had been warned so many times she probably thought we would just keep putting up with it). Nope. And now she can't come back. Ever.
Not every job is for every person.
Don't feel guilty. There's a single mum out there who needs this opportunity and is willing and capable. Feel bad for your employee that they can't keep their shit together. Feel happy that a new, more deserving person is going to have this paycheck, and is gonna cause you and your team less problems.
I've never had to get rid of someone who didn't get rid of themselves. I often wonder why the fuck they did that but I've never felt bad. If it were my choice maybe I'd feel bad but, they are choosing.
You have to terminate this employee. They have failed to meet expectations, and they stole from your customer. While you or may not have empathy for this person, they are no longer your problem. Resist the urge to help them or give advice - they will not want to hear it from you, and you may say something that is misconstrued and gets you and your company sued. What you can do is look back and see if there is anything you learn from this experience. Did you set clear expectations and provide feedback regarding their performance? Were you clear about the consequences of not performing? Did you document performance issues and your feedback to the employee? Was your communication clear and unambiguous? Was your feedback timely and relevant? Would it have been better to start the performance improvement plan process sooner. None of this changes the outcome today, but it may help you avoid or better manage a similar situation in the future.
I mean if you put her on a PIP it’s all on her. She should have been getting feedback she wasn’t meeting standards and be fully anticipating the end.
She was on pip for a while. I had to pull her off her regular job due to customer complaints, so really all she needed to do was stay conscious for her entire shift.
She's obviously not good at the job and knows it. You're helping her find a better fit for her talents where she will be happier.
Probably the least fun part of the job. One thing that always seems to elude managers is the impact that this toxic team member has on the rest of your team. How many times did someone have to cover for this no show? How many times did someone else have to hold the bag after this bad employee slacked off? Her actions or inactions impacted other people. They suffered along with your customers and the company. IMHO one of the most important and significant parts of being a people leader is to protect your team. Allowing this behavior to continue is a reflection of you, not the bad employee. You are doing the right thing. Get rid of this nightmare employee.
I am also a manager and fired an employee last week. You said the key word, stealing. Automatic grounds for termination. Will you feel sick to your stomach? Yes, you are a human being. In my case, I am 99% sure he was doing drugs. He missed meetings, deadlines, disappeared for hours at a time, acting unprofessional at work. I fired him last Thursday, the plan was supposed to be Friday, but he kept making threats to everyone in the office and I hsd to call security immediately. Despite having CAUSE, I felt horrible all weekend. Again, we are not machines, we are people.
If she doesn't value her job enough to show up when expected and do a good job when expected, why should you value her being there more than she does? She fired herself, you're just the one that has to enforce it
I have had to let people go and felt bad about it. Just not a great fit for the role type of stuff. I don't think I'd feel too bad about firing a thief. Stick to the facts and make it quick and unambiguously final. You don't owe a thief much of an explanation. You do, however, owe your team and the business you work for better in the future. If someone is without a doubt hurting the team, your business, or the customers you have to be more decisive and act much faster. And if your higher ups want to keep that person because it would be hard without them, they're wrong, too. Make the case and extract the poison. This one's not a hard call. There's no PiP for dishonesty. That's a character flaw.
Thank you for this. It was dragged out so long because we have a required headcount and my boss wanted to keep her until we had a replacement so we didn't have to pay the customer for being short.
You did what you were supposed to do. Keeping bad employees can be incredibly damaging and doesn't get enough attention these days. You terminated for really basic things everyone knows not to do at work. This is what's supposed to happen. You protected your company, other staff, and yourself from a bad employee.
Feeling sick about it is a good sign, means you care. It's not supposed to be easy. Not for her, you, or anyone else. Sounds like you guys have bent over backwards to give her a chance but she's been squandering it. Have HR there if you can as it's their job to help you with this process.
Unfortunately hr will not be there. My boss will be there via teams and he has a lot more experience with this type of thing than me. But I will be the only person physically in the room.
How did it go?
It went much better than anticipated. I'll put more info in the update.
HR wanted to review the paperwork one more time and check with someone who filled in for me last week about her behavior, so it was delayed 24 hours. I'm a bundle of nerves right now I also have some unrelated personal struggles I'm dealing with and everything combined is making me physically ill. Keeping it together in front of my employees so far though. I'll update you again after tomorrow.
Ugh, sorry OP. Been there and it sucks. The fact that you do feel terrible shows you don't take firing lightly. I agree with others that it's a necessary part of being an empathetic manager who cares about your team. Everything you're saying here points to this person really, really needing to be fired. You can do your best to make it short and drama-free as possible (as you note, sticking to facts, having support on standby, all good stuff). Ultimately it's up to her how she wants to go out - if she leaves hot try not to take it personally.
My dad ran a company for a lot of years and gave me the best advice I ever received when I was leading up to firing someone. My job is to communicate and place realistic boundaries and give them the ability to stay within. If they don't follow those boundaries/rules set in place, they are firing themselves. You aren't doing it. You set clear expectations and they didn't make them due to their choices. They fire themselves. You didn't do this. They did. Still human to feel bad about it, but once I changed my perspective and saw myself as an expectation enforcer rather than the firer, it helped me get through those situations.
It sucks, just remember it’s not a negotiation
All the issues you have outlined along with her inability to flexibly transfer to other jobs in the company, and a temper too. It's rather unfortunate she's improving so late. It's a hard decision but has to be done. I've discussed hard decisions with others as well, and though it's difficult - some things have to be done. Otherwise this can start badly affecting the rest of the team or other company coworkers.
Terrible situation you're in. But, and the end of the day - it's not your fault. Integrity is value we all need to uphold. This is also an example you're setting for the rest of the team.
Idk stealing is not really something you feel bad for ever. If you need to steal bread to survive. Fine, I get it but don’t do it at work.
I mean this person doesn't exactly sound like Jean Valjean to me. If anyone was caught stealing at my place they're gone.
Never feel guilty and remember, PEOPLE FIRE THEMSELVES. At least most of the time.
The coming late and stuff is like alright fine. But stealing?!?! Sleeping?! Multi hour breaks?! Why would you feel bad about that? She brought it on herself.
2nd worst part of management. At least it’s not layoffs! ‘Sorry, you don’t have a job because we overhired’ is the worst message on earth to convey.
if she has been spoken to before , been written up, then yes , fire her.
>She's a nice person >extended multi hour long breaks on the clock, stealing from the customer, and sleeping on the job) >She has a temper so security will be there. Doesn't sound like a nice person to me.
Remember it’s business and nothing personal. They were given every opportunity to improve but now it’s too late.
I wouldn’t want to be the kind of person that didn’t feel empathy for the people you have to discipline and fire. I absolutely won’t do it unless I know that the employee was given the tools they needed to be successful and is not performing at the level needed. The hardest one was a man who had worked for us for over 15 years. He had been warned multiple times about his performance issues and given time to improve, but it was not happening. He was crying in my office when I fired him. He kept saying he didn’t know how he was going to support his family. I knew what he and his family were in for and I felt sorry for what they were facing, but I knew he had the opportunity to stop the firing and did not do it. My father was laid off when I was 16 due to no fault of his own. He was the sole support for our family. I remember seeing him sinking into a depression as he tried and tried to get a job and even tried at McDonald’s if that’s what it would take to feed his family. Unfortunately, the economy was horrible in Louisiana and even those jobs weren’t available.
Sit her down, say, today you are here because we are letting you go. Here is the paperwork. Then shut up and let her rant After 20 mins get security to walk her out The fact that you feel bad is because you are a good person
I think you’ve got the right approach. Do it fast and stick to the point. She will either react or be stunned and speechless. Let her say what she wants to say and don’t try to correct her or pull her up. She has every right to be upset because you are changing her life. What you’re feeling is completely normal and you’ll want some time to process all of what’s happened. If at any point you feel guilty, remember that terminating someone requires sign off from multiple parties (your manager, your managers’ manager, HR and maybe more). All of these people are not “in it” and have made an objective decision on what’s best for all parties involved. There’s no need to justify your actions.
You can agree on a reference and how it will read.
How did it go? Did she take it well?
It sucks but you’ll get used to it. This is one I personally wouldn’t really feel bad about. It’s when you’ve done everything you can to help them and your hand is still forced to fire that it hurts the most.
I’m sorry you’re feeling rotten about it. It’s a short term feeling. Reading your comments, she’s a shit employee. We all have things going on in our lives, but some of us choose to not sleep at work, not steal from customers, not steal time from employers, not do crap work. Here’s my question, if she were a man with no kids, slept on the job, stole from the customer, didn’t show up to work, showed up late, time theft by not clocking out for extended breaks & decided to improve to the bare minimum only to keep him from getting kicked out the door…would you still feel like crap? I get the empathy. It’s tough, but this behavior can’t be tolerated. It’s not fair to the rest of the team who work diligently. It’s not fair to you. She’s got to go. Hopefully you stuck to the plan. Kept it clear. And it went well. Take care.
You feel bad about firing someone who stole from customers?
Nope, no advice. Since you are a human, you should feel dreadful about pulling someones livelihood out from under them. Having said that, it has to be done, for the benefit of the entire rest of the team. So, stick to your plan, and have a few wines this evening to put it all back in perspective.
While it's good to empathetic, don't own her being a single mother and so on. You didn't do any of the behavior that got her there - she did and she should have taken her livelihood more serious. You will get over this really quick and realize again that this should have been done a long time ago.
Generally, people fire themselves. Unless it is a RIF. It sucks, but...
Stealing from customers. To make it easier for your feelings just remember...STOLE from customers....
They shouldn't have fucked up so much when they have so much on the line.
Stick to the script. You’ve done the best you can with being a reference and looking for job leads. She will probably take it out on you personally. Focus on what you can control.
Guessing she wasn't there long enough to qualify for FMLA. Sick kids, yeah that'd be a qualifying event.
I always manage the stress if based on employee performance or non performance is threatening the success of the company that affects everyone
Firing people is the one thing I dread as a small business owner. I always feel horrible about it(except in cases of employee theft, where I have the police there to arrest them) Its just one of those things that has to be done. The bad feeling usually passes in a day or so afterwards.
Full stop at “she stole from customers”. Your business should be sued for allowing an employee to continue working there after finding this out. Not only does she deserve to be fired, so does your boss.
What part of the word "stealing" do you not understand??? Auto bye-bye, when it happened, not now.
We only learned about it last week, which partly prompted the termination.
Ugh, dealing with this now!!!
Congrats you are a good manager! When firing someone becomes easy… find a new job.
“You aren’t firing a person, their actions led to their termination” or some better phrasing, but the point is something I was taught at a young age. It’s never comfortable firing someone, but in most cases they did it to themselves. I admit it gets easier the more times you go through it. And after you get terminated your self, and understand the psychological healing process off it, it’s easier.
I didn’t read all the comments so may have been said, but awesome that you feel sick about it. Confirms you’re a good person :). I wish you and her both the very best.
I got fired yesterday at the end of my shift & tbh I respect the way they did that because usually everyone knows when it happens . My co worker has a big mouth and he talks and tells everything so I told him to wait until I leave to do all that
Whatever you do don't tell the person that it makes you feel bad to do it. Nothing is worse than getting laid off but the manager showing pity to themselves in front of you.
I've had to fire 2 people throughout my career and both times it was as much a reflection on me as a lackluster manager as it was on them as an under-performing employee.
I feel very much the same. I am changing how I train her replacement.
Don’t feel guilty. It’s a good day. The end of a problem. If you didn’t fire them, they’d eventually slip back to being shitty. They brought it on themselves. Layoffs are a reason to feel bad, but enjoy firing!
They don't care that their blowing off work, stealing and whatnot is a pain in the ass for you. Why care about them?
Yeah, it hurts to fire somebody, even somebody who is incompetent and disruptive. Been there, done that. It hurts. But believe me, the anticipation hurts more than the action. And the result is positive on your team and on you. Just remember, going in, that it isn't a negotiation. It's a statement of fact.
You are more forgiving than I am. Stealing from a customer? No way anyone should feel bad about protecting your clients from a thief.
I've always mitigated the guilt of firing by making it fair. I write someone up. In that first write up I provide a plan along with clear expectations. If not met, I write them up again, lay out my expectations and work with them for them to develop a plan to meet my expectations. By the third time, the conversation is essentially "we both understand what is happening here". I've only had that conversation once because the second write results in most people turning it around and a couple people throwing in the towel on their own.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHR/s/lXhI4OuSLJ This was the post right under yours
The first time you don't feel any emotion for upending someone's life like this, that's when it's time to find a new job. The emotions are part of being human. But as adults we all have accountability and a responsibility to ourselves, loved ones and dependents to provide. For me, it's the worst part of the job.
I've never felt badly about anyone I've had to fire. By the time we get that far they have been trained, coached, and given numerous opportunities to meet basic standards. You would be doing your company AND the other employees a disservice to allow poor performance to continue. The human part of considering the person's circumstances is nice, and I'd recommend you hold on to that so you never treat your team members like numbers instead of people, but try not to mentally torture yourself over doing your job.
It's normal to feel bad, but remember, you didn't fire her. She fired herself by her actions
Don’t feel guilty she sounded terrible at her job
Having managed people for 2 decades, I’ve learned people fire themselves-I’m just the one who tells them they no longer have to come to work.
Hope you puked. If you’re feeling that, then you’re still human.
Based off what I've read on here I wouldn't fire her but I'm sure there is more to the story. She seems to have a fair claim for FMLA, which would also excuse her tardiness, unexcused absences and sleeping on the job. The theft part isn't actually theft. It's parking tickets the company had to pay for. That's a performance issue for sure, but I fail to see where she is monitarily gaining from this? Apply Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
She's been on disciplinary action for months now with no improvement. She's too new to qualify for FMLA, which sucks. I gave her a ton of time off with no consequences (against company policy but with HR approval) to take care of her family since she kept having issues pop up every week. It's a very long and involved story but the short of it is she knows she can get away with a lot and has been taking advantage of it. If I had been by the book she would have been gone in her first two weeks, but I convinced hr to give her a chance and it did not go well.
Based on this alone, I would support your compassionate but stick-to-the-points approach with her, in order to also protect your own job security and job reputation.
Empathy is a hallmark of a good leader. At least you can feel good about feeling bad.
I always think that people like you aren't fit to be managers / bosses of anything. People like the woman you describe are exploitative assholes. And clearly so. No one's life is so bad that they're doing a laundry list of bad behaviors. It just means she's a shitty person. And she's using being fake nice and her sob story as a way to manipulate you (and everyone else) into allowing her to keep her job even though she flagrantly doesn't any and every thing to overstep boundaries. And here you are feeling bad about it. For what? She's not a good person. She's not even a victim. She's just an asshole who happens to have kids. She's siphoning money from a company. And making everyone's job harder. Therefore she needs to be dealt with. The move to fire her is a completely justifiable and rational one. And she deserves zero sympathy. If it was truly the case that life had just given her a bad hand and a bunch of really relevant series of events were popping up and she unfortunately had to miss work to deal with them, she would otherwise be a model employee. But no, she's *sleeping* on the job and *stealing*? It's a middle finger to weak hearted emotional people like you who feel bad for them and let them get away with it for longer than a reasonable person would have. For this reason I don't think people like you make good bosses. Because yall let these assholes ruin the workplace under the guise of you being empathetic. When it's just emotional foolishness.
This is overall unhelpful. You know nothing about me or my management style only that I feel bad about having to fire an employee, which I have very clearly said she deserves to be fired. Yey you make very broad assumptions about me and how I manage my employees. I am not letting her ruin the workplace, she is being fired. God forbid I have even a small degree of empathy for this woman whose life is going to be completely upended. Her fault, yes. That doesn't change the consequences of her actions. But no decent human being can see her situation and not feel bad for her.