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Termination without Notice" - The Readers Respond"

Published: Mar 31, 2009

 Workplace Issues       

It looks like The HR Guy's Termination without Notice piece stirred up a lot of controversy!

Another solution
"The other way is to allow the CEO to have his way by having you terminate the employee tomorrow. After you've told the CEO you "done it", you can tell him to call his lawyer and get out the checkbook. Wrongful termination suits are increasing exponentially. Courts don't generally feel sorry for the organization that did the firing, especially if there is no effort to try and let the employee know there's a problem. I know. I was fired...by a law firm, without any notice. Quite the contrary, I had been getting high praise from all partners [except the one who didn't like my "style"]. It cost them my salary, benefits, legal fees and a "cushion" for the equivalent of about a year's income. Not to mention the fact that they were rebuked severly in court by the trial judge for not 'having known better than to treat an employee so calously.'"

Have we no ethics?!?
"I was surprised by your answer to the question from the HR manager of a small company whose boss wanted him to fire someone for poor performance, although that boss had never mentioned to the employee that he was dissatisfied with her work. Talk about a firing coming out of the blue! Perhaps this is grounds for wrongful termination...perhaps not. But what about ethics? Shouldn't a company, even a small one, be concerned about treating people fairly? Civilly? What message does it send to other employees when a colleague is never counseled. Never criticized. Just sacked? What effect on morale? And why aren't these issues addressed in your answer? I thought even "HR Guys" had ethics."

Read on for more comments and some final analysis from the HR Guy...

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Legal, but wrong
"Although I agree with you about the "employment at will" clause, I still feel it is the HR professional's responsibility to advise the business line of the seriousness of the risk they put to the company when they do things like this. There is no excuse for letting an employee go for performance reasons without giving the employee the benefit of the doubt. How does the HR person know if this is truly a performance issue anyway? It is the responsibility of the HR person to play the role of the employee advocate, while mitigating any risk to the organization. In this particular situation I feel the HR person should've pushed back on the manager and advised him to document a warning. Oh, and the manager should terminate the employee, not HR."

The HR Guy says...
I agree -- firing this person on the spot with no prior notice is suspect not only in terms of lawsuit-avoidance, but also in terms of ethics. Annie made her plea, but the CEO simply didn't care. She tried to warn him of the implications and persuade him to act otherwise, but he wanted to hear none of it. Sometimes the big boss makes a decision you don't like but still need to act on. That's reality!

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