How much notice should I give

[jlrans]

What is the name of your state? NH

I have an employee who has been with us for slightly over a year and is simply not meeting our needs (we're a small technology consulting company). She simply lacks the skills that we need for one of our contracts.

When she came on board she signed a "boiler plate" letter that clearly stated that she was an at-will employee.

I've met with her a few times over the last year and discussed her performance with her and she knows that I am not satisfied with her technical capabilities.

She is currently working for us with a client in a very security sensitve capacity.

I plan on letter her go -- I have no confidence that she is going to excel in her job.

I simply plan on letting her know that she is not meeting my needs.

question -- how much notice should I give her? do i need to be more specific in providing a reason for her termination?

My concern is that I want to follow "industry norms", but also don't want a disgruntled employee around on a high security job, or lodging a complaint for unfair termination.

thanks in advance for any help that is offerred.

 

[Beth3]

"how much notice should I give her?" Do you mean notice that she's being fired? The "industry norm" is none. You tell someone they're being terminated and they're gone immediately. There are all sorts of good reasons why this is the custom and a sound practice as well. Severance pay is not required but if an employer can provide it, that's a good thing to do.

"do i need to be more specific in providing a reason for her termination?" No, you don't have to but I always come down on the side of telling an employee why they're being terminated. You don't need to go into chapter and verse though - a high level explanation is sufficient.

The problem with not telling someone why they're being fired is that most people will assume that if they weren't given a reason, then there must be an illegal reason (i.e. "It must be my gender/race/age/etc. otherwise they would have told me") and then they're off and running...

 

[cbg]

How much notice should you give? Let me tell you about an instance that happened at my former company. The employee, who was being fired for cause, was given 15 minutes to collect her personal belongings. In that 15 minutes, she managed to do $2000 worth of damage to a computer, delete several key files, and cancel the travel reservations for the CEO and the rest of upper management (making these arrangements had been one of her job duties) for the rest of the calendar year. It was October.

You do not give anyone notice that they are going to be fired. If there is going to be a mass layoff, that's one thing, but if an individual employee is being let go for unsatisfactory job performance, you don't give them advance notice; you simply fire them. Why give them the opportunity to create more havoc?

While it is not required by law that you give her a reason, in fairness to her (and also for the very excellent reason Beth provides) let her know that she is being fired because of her job performance. You don't need to provide a laundry list of things she did wrong; you say she knows you are not satisfied with her performance. Just tell her that you are letting her go because her job performance is unsatisfactory and let it go at that.

 

[Beth3]

cbg, didn't one of our colleagues on another board relate the story of the employee who was fired and who was left to escort himself out of the building? Instead, he found a telephone in an out-of-the-way spot, dialed into the PA system, and spent the next 20 minutes or so calling the CEO and the rest of management every name in the book for all to hear until they could identify which phone he was speaking from and stop him.

Hahahaha Pretty funny, although I'm glad it never happened at one of my companies.

 

[cbg]

I'd forgotten that one till you mentioned it, but yes, I recall that one now.

For the record, the incident at my former employer happened the day before I went to work for them. After I explained to them the many mistakes they had made in the process (since I got to deal with the fall out) new procedures were put into place that involved terming the employee's computer access BEFORE telling them they were fired, and having a witness present while they collected their belongings. Or, having the company mail them.

 

[jlrans]

thanks for all the good advice -- really appreciated.