Posted on February 6th, 2019
A complete transcription of the video is below.
So, a sad day for me today. I had to fire an employee. And certainly I’ve fired several employees over the years, but it’s never easy to do.
And as an entrepreneur and as a business owner, that happens sometimes.
Sometimes you have to fire people, either misbehavior, economic reasons, or sometimes it’s just not a good fit.
I thought I’d make this video and let people know how I think it’s best to fire people and what’s worked for me in the past because I’ve roughly fired probably 30 people in 10 years.
And that may not seem like a lot for larger businesses, but even for me, a medium size business, I think that’s a lot. Most of my employees have been good fits and been good employees.
I think the first thing to do is document everything. If there’s a problem, or a continuing problem, you document it so that there’s evidence that there was a problem and that you’re not terminating for some unlawful reason.
If a situation comes up and the person’s done something where you have to fire them immediately, then just document it there.
But what I tend to do is, and luckily I haven’t had a situation where I had to fire an employee right then and there for something that was extreme, some sort of extreme behavior.
So, what I’ve done is document it and then when it came time to terminate I typically like to sit down with them, tell them why I’m terminating them, show them all of the documentation, and then I tend to offer them a severance agreement in exchange for a release of all claims.
I know that sounds crazy, especially if you’re running a business outside of California, but in California, unfortunately, people sue for the craziest things, and better to pay a couple extra thousand dollars than hundreds of thousands of dollars defending yourself to prove that you didn’t do anything wrong.
In my opinion, if you’re a California employer, I say attempt to get a severance agreement and a general release of all claims.
Thanks
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