How to tell an employee that you want to break up with him

Every employer at least once in practice was dissatisfied with the quality of work of some of its employees or their failure to fulfill their duties. Often this subsequently leads to termination of the employment contract.

Fortunately, the vast majority of separations occur peacefully - by agreement of the parties or at the person’s own request. But the situation may be different: the employee is not ready to leave when the company is forced to do so. HR faces difficulties that often lead to dead ends. We have already held more than 1,300 such negotiations.

The need for dismissal

There may be several reasons why management decided to fire an employee:

• constant lateness to work;
• appearing at work while intoxicated;
• abuse of official duties;
• loss of trust;
• conflict;
• disclosure of confidential information and so on.

In order to dismiss an employee, you need to have fairly compelling reasons, which are specified in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. The decision to terminate an employment contract cannot be made spontaneously; it must be justified by objective reasons.

If you are regularly late, conflict situations arise, or an employee appears drunk, there is no need to rush to fire him. It is recommended to reprimand the culprit in front of witnesses and warn that dismissal will follow next time. There are several reasons for this:

• the employee will understand that management knows and sees his “mistakes”, and if they are repeated, he will be fired;
• this will serve as an excellent lesson for other workers;
• a public warning will stimulate management: if the situation with violation of labor discipline is repeated, so as not to undermine its authority with empty words, the administration will fire the violator.

If the employee’s qualifications are insufficient, the problem is solved by sending him to courses at the expense of the enterprise. It is still much more profitable to develop your own personnel than to hire personnel from outside.

There are situations when termination of an employment contract is the only way out. If an employee works for competitors, discloses secret information, or when it comes to another serious violation, the administration will have to say goodbye to such a specialist. Such people do not change, so you need to fire them without regret.

There are often situations when an employee is responsible and conscientious, but at the same time does not fully cope with the responsibilities assigned to him; he cannot move up the career ladder and develop as a specialist. Sooner or later, the head of the enterprise will have to solve this problem, since his business is suffering.

Tips for HR: how to avoid possible problems with dismissal even at the stage of hiring an employee

Almost any employee has to part with sooner or later. And not necessarily because the parties were disappointed in each other. But to ensure that the dismissal process is simple and painless in any case, HR departments should adhere to a few simple recommendations:

• Drawing up detailed job descriptions that clearly define all the responsibilities of employees and the penalties for failure to fulfill them.
• There are no discrepancies between employment contracts and other documents that employees follow in their work. This will avoid ambiguities in interpretations.
• The employee must be officially familiarized with all the requirements, which must be confirmed by a document signed by him and three other employees.
• The employee must initially be familiarized with the KPI requirements and clearly indicate what productivity will be required of him in order for him to meet the employer’s expectations.

And most importantly, you need to greet each new employee in a friendly manner, establish good relationships with him, try to help him adapt and join the team. With this approach, the likelihood of him being apathetic towards his work will be significantly reduced.

Useful and harmful advice

If management has decided to fire an employee, then it is a balanced and deliberate decision, but it is difficult to tell an employee that he has been fired. The terrible task of notifying an employee of dismissal can be entrusted to the head of the personnel department, but if the company is small, then the manager will have to do this. First of all, we need to refute some myths about dismissal that business coaches convey to people.

Presence of witnesses and short conversation

It is believed that if a deputy manager or another specialist is present during a conversation with a candidate for dismissal, this will help maintain the right atmosphere and not descend into accusations and abuse.
In fact, such a conversation does not need the presence of a third person. Under the power of emotions, a fired person can express his dissatisfaction and make claims; it is unlikely that someone else will help avoid this. It is recommended that such news be reported without witnesses. There is an opinion that the conversation should be short and not take more than 15 minutes. During this time, everyone will be able to speak out and agree on future plans. There is no need to drag out the conversation, as it is unpleasant for either side. We can only agree here that the conversation is really unpleasant.

As for the duration, it depends on the circumstances and the nature of the fired: one will want to speak out, and the other will cry. The administration is obliged to listen to the person, since even the court gives the accused the right to the last word.

Without foreplay, but with apologies

It is believed that before telling a person that he will be fired, you should not praise him; he may not understand why they decided to fire him. In fact, talking about advantages is not only possible, but also necessary. This will prepare the employee for dismissal. The carrot and stick method always works.

Business coaches argue that management should not apologize to a fired employee because such behavior can sow doubt about the thoughtfulness of the decision. But it’s not difficult to apologize to an employee, especially in a situation where the manager really regrets that he needs to leave. In addition, an apology will remove most of the claims from the worker. There are a lot of options for how to tell an employee about dismissal. Everyone chooses what is more acceptable for themselves.

Kickidler: recording violations in the workplace and analyzing employee productivity

The easiest way is to convince an employee to write a statement “of his own free will,” clearly, with evidence, but still in a gentle form showing that he is not coping with his responsibilities well enough and does not demonstrate the same results as his colleagues. In the case of violations of the regime and routine, it will be useful to be able, when talking with the violator, to show him what and when he violated. And in such a way that there is no room for excuses. Both problems can be solved by implementing the Kickidler working time monitoring and recording system, which automatically:

• records video from workers’ PC screens;
• records all keystrokes on the keyboard;
• controls the services, programs and applications opened on the PC, tracking whether they are intended for work or entertainment;
• records downtime, absenteeism and tardiness;
• keeps track of working hours;
• sends notifications of violations to the manager;
• analyzes employee productivity and performs many other useful functions.

Thanks to this functionality with Kickidler, you will know exactly who is working worse or better, who is systematically late, who sits in the smoking room the most, or who is doing extraneous things at the workplace. Personal performance reports will help you understand who has lost motivation and is dragging down the performance of the entire office with their reduced productivity.

But the main thing is that you can show all this and clearly explain it to your employee, simply by displaying his personal statistics of productivity and/or violations on the computer screen. As a rule, this is enough for the employee to understand and accept the need to change the workplace, and leave without harboring a grudge.

Please note: it is 100% legal to use an employee monitoring system only with their written consent to monitoring. It is best to receive it directly upon employment. Employees who are going to really work conscientiously usually have nothing against it, and by agreeing they only confirm their intention to contribute to the development of the company.

Kickidler time tracking system

Contactless termination of an employment contract

There are several psychological techniques that will allow the administration to lead an employee to the point that he himself wants to leave the company. These include:

• Letters of happiness. HR specialists look for a vacancy for an unwanted employee and send his resume. After some time, he will begin to receive job offers. If a person finds a job with a higher salary or with more suitable conditions for him, then most likely he will leave his previous company without any hesitation.
• Gossip. You can spread a rumor around the company that there will soon be a reduction in the position of an employee who needs to be fired. An intelligent person, having learned about this, will immediately look for another job for himself, and as soon as he finds it, he will immediately write an application of his own free will. Even if he doesn’t bother searching, the news of his impending dismissal will not be shocking to him.
• Hit with a ruble. Explaining everything to the financial difficulties of the company, many managers practice removing bonuses and additional payments from unwanted employees. Affected self-esteem and a deterioration in one’s own financial situation will set a person on the path of self-dismissal.
• Overboard. There is a certain method by which a candidate for dismissal is slowly but surely forced out of the life of the company. Even if the employee was not informed that he was fired, being isolated, he will still decide to leave. This method is widely used in Russian companies, especially when it is necessary to fire a former manager who, having resigned, is still trying to interfere in management affairs.

Tips for problematic negotiations with an employee

One way or another, almost any situation leads to negotiations with employees.
For them, as well as for possible separation in general, we must carefully prepare. For example, almost all companies have a shortage of meeting rooms, but this is precisely the key to constructive communication. The main advice is to stick to one strategy, but always keep a plan B in reserve. That is, if you are talking about staff reduction, you should not switch to possible human errors or mistakes. On the other hand, dismissal at the initiative of the employer should always be in reserve.

For this purpose, the necessary set of documents and evidence should be at hand. Of course, you need to think through the organization and conduct of the meeting itself, down to the smallest detail, including materials and equipment: calculator, Labor Code, etc.

More importantly, it is imperative to understand the reasons that prompted a person to take such actions. Perhaps the issue is an existing loan or some kind of conflict within the team.

Until now, during separation negotiations, HR specialists tell the specialist: we are ready to give good recommendations. Our experience negates this factor: 5 years ago it worked, but now it is not significant for the employee, and he is ready to “go to the end,” including going to court. That is why, when the meeting is successfully completed, the final chord depends on HR. It is necessary to say such words so that the person will have positive emotions from the meeting.

Conversation before goodbye

If the manager prefers to frankly tell the employee that the company does not need him, then first you need to collect information about the “victim” in order to be able to choose the right words in the conversation. It is advisable to be confident in your own decision during the conversation. All this is done only for the benefit of our own enterprise. There are several recommendations:

• Only the director, and not other specialists, should inform the employee about his dismissal from a small company, otherwise the person will doubt that the “chief” is in the know and will suspect this specialist of inciting intrigue.
• The meeting should take place one on one, without the presence of witnesses.
• You need to talk about the reasons for dismissal calmly and honestly. An employee has every right to know why his employment contract is being terminated. Information must be conveyed as clearly and correctly as possible. This will protect the head of the enterprise from talking about secret motives for dismissal (for example, gender or age discrimination). In addition, knowing his “sins”, a person can take them into account when applying for a new job.
• The employee needs to be helped in subsequent employment and given a few days to find a job. After all, changing one job for another is much easier both psychologically and financially than going nowhere.
• The employee must be paid all the money due under the Labor Code. An ideal option would be to present the bonus in cash on the day of dismissal.
• It is not recommended to “burn bridges” and cut off all relations with a former employee. It is possible to agree that, if necessary, the administration will contact him to perform this or that work as a part-time job with the appropriate payment.
• You definitely need to thank the worker for his work and wish him every success. This must be done as sincerely as possible.

If you want to part with an employee without mutual offense, then you need to communicate with him as a person. After all, he gave a certain part of his life to the enterprise.

Example of management behavior

There is one example of a dialogue with an employee that can be called “A Broken Record.” The manager constantly repeats his demands, trying to prevent dialogue. The shock situation leads to the fact that 9 out of 10 people still write a statement of their own free will.

This dialogue looks like this:

• Natalya, I ask you to write a personal statement to terminate the employment contract at your own request. I have been watching you for a very long time and I can say that I am dissatisfied with your work, I ask you to resign of your own free will.
• Why?
• I received a memo stating that you constantly show aggression towards your boss. I don’t want conflicts, so I ask you to write this statement yourself.
• I explained the reason for my behavior, it is more than objective!
• Natalya, my decision is firm and deliberate, I don’t need your comments, so I simply ask you to resign.
• Can I go out and have a glass of water? I'll write when I get back.
• Write first and then go wherever you want.
• I need to think.
• There is nothing to think about, the decision has been made. The reports provided to me prove your incompetence. Please write a letter of resignation.

Most often, at this moment the person is already broken and does not even try to say anything in response. He just leaves. This method is not the most humane, so you cannot break up with a person without hurting his self-esteem, but when the situation requires it, you can use any methods.

In Russia, the personality-oriented approach is inferior to the soulless management of the American style. Managers increasingly forget that what stands in front of them is not a robot, but a living person who is capable of worrying, feeling and fear. There is no universal method of dismissal; you always need to act according to the situation. Perhaps the most correct way to do everything humanely is to mentally put yourself in the place of a candidate for dismissal. Then the leader will act and speak as he would like to be spoken to. By the way, this method is good not only for dismissal.