Workers want to know why you're sacking them and juries agree the employees have a right to know. A reprimand letter is mostly the first step in any legal and proper worker separating process. Be clear, you still have a problem as this worker is probably a difficult person to manage, but this is not a case of misbehavior. If anything, these forms will provide your legal organization or the company's attorney with enough evidence against the worker should legal problems arise from the dismissal. When you are telling the employee of your grounds for letting him go, he may get the idea that you are just "warning" him. They must know how to sack an at will employee while limiting their liability if the case goes to court. Here is where your small company policies become important. And, if you're terminating for an wrongful reason, you'll at least know you're inviting a litigation. An exit interview is a meeting between a management representative and the fired employee. It shows a jury you carefully considered the termination before carrying it out, and you gave the difficult employee "due procedure." It also shows someone else in the company supported the decision. If the worker files a unlawful layoff suit, you need another boss to verify what you said and did in the meeting.

Here you'll learn how to evaluate the risk of your termination using my proprietary and trademarked Dismissal Risk Estimate & Protection System(tm). Having Standards for Employee separation Is A Good Firm Practice. Gross misbehavior is the one place you can summarily fire a worker without worry. If you treat them with dignity, the employees staying behind and working with you will respect that and you'll not create any rifts in the workplace.