Once relevant parties know about the termination, schedule a meeting with the employee, preferably giving just a few minutes of notice. Late notice doesn’t give the employee time to stew about an upcoming meeting and allows you to be sensitive to the employee’s feelings. It also serves as a security measure to ensure they don’t begin emailing themselves files or deleting them.
Include a witness in the termination meeting (preferably an HR or legal representative) to limit your liability. Keep the meeting short. Briefly explain to the employee why they’re being terminated, but avoid overexplaining, exaggerating, or justifying. It’s helpful to rehearse the explanation beforehand.
Remind the employee of any confidentiality or noncompete agreements. Likewise, let the employee know when they can expect to receive a final paycheck, whether they will be paid for unused vacation hours, and what will happen with any health care benefits. Consider furnishing the employee with a termination letter, as they may need one to collect unemployment benefits.
This meeting can also serve as a brief exit interview. While you’ll likely take a terminated employee’s feedback with a grain of salt, they may provide useful suggestions that can help you avoid future terminations. For example, they might reveal that feelings of exclusion affected their performance, which could encourage you to develop a more inclusive culture. As you accept feedback, make it clear this information does not affect their terminated status.
As this meeting takes place, IT should revoke all computer and data permissions for the terminated employee. You should also have the employee turn over any keys, badges, laptops, phones, or other company property. If they do not have all that equipment with them, make a clear plan to get everything returned as soon as possible, perhaps requiring all company property to be returned before you issue a final paycheck.
At the close of the termination meeting, escort the employee from the building as discreetly as possible, letting them collect only essentials like car keys from their desk. Tell them when they can return to collect other belongings or if you’ll mail their remaining personal effects.
After termination
At this point, you may need to make other employees aware of the termination. Tell only employees affected by the termination. For liability reasons, keep explanations short, simply stating that the former employee no longer works there. Let affected employees know about any transition plans, too, whether that means hiring a replacement, restructuring the team, or taking some other measure.
Follow through on any final obligations to the terminated employee, such as sending their last paycheck or letting them come in after hours to collect their belongings.
Have a policy in place for future interactions with the terminated employee as well. Establish how your company will respond to reference requests, and ensure that, when the time comes, relevant tax documents get sent to the former employee.
Begin with your established guidelines for terminable behavior, with each offense flowing into the appropriate action (performance improvement plan, disciplinary action, or immediate termination). Be sure to include documentation steps in your flowchart. If the problem behavior stops, your process is finished. If not, your chart should flow into what happens when you decide to terminate.
Figure out who needs to be notified in your process, referring to your org chart as necessary. Again, it’s a good idea to include HR, IT, and legal at this point. Branch out your flowchart to include whatever steps these departments need to take, and make these steps specific to your organization. For example, make it clear that IT needs to revoke permissions on your email, chat, project management system, and file sharing service of choice, and list specific company property that needs to be recovered. If a list gets particularly long, use Lucidchart to create a companion checklist that you can distribute to the relevant departments to ensure no details get overlooked.
