Can I fire without notice

[kazza]

Florida

I hired a sales and marketing exec almost 2 years ago. At first things seemed to going well. However, after a while sales dropped off and I suspected that he was wasting time surfing the net etc. I purchased an employee monitoring program and sure enough over a 5 day monitoring exercise found out that he was spending around 2 and a half hours a day playing solitaire, checking his personal email and generally web surfing. I confronted him about this and he seemed genuinely sorry and assured me that it would not happen again. This is a $55,000 per year employee. However, things have slipped again (the employee does not know that I can monitor websites visited etc). It is apparent over the last week that he is actively looking for other employment - in my time. I' ve decided that I wish to fire this employee now. His is also selling Arbonne in his spare time, but places orders for the product in my time. Can I fire this employee without notice? Any suggestions on the best way to handle this?What is the name of your state?

 

[weenor]

Unless you have a specific contract with this employee stating otherwise of course you can fire him without notice. However, to protect yourself, make sure everything is contemporaneously documented (as it happens). Also make sure that you are treating this person the same way you would any other employee. In other words if someone else is surfing the net and you chose not fire them, then you could have a problem. Also, is there a specific company policy regarding the internet and are his production numbers not what they should be......All communications should be documented.

 

[kazza]

He is my only full-time employee. I have 3 part-time employees that do not have access to work computers. I am really upset by the situation as I had put a lot of trust in this guy. We are a new start up and he is the highest paid employee. He knows that we have put everything into the business and it is a sink or swim situation for us. He is strictly a 9 -5 man and never works overtime or out of his normal hours. Would you simply fire him and refuse to give a reference or ask him to resign? I have pages and pages of reports showing him using the internet for his own personal use. We live in a realatively small city with extremely low unemployment, so he will have no problem walking into another job.

 

[kazza]

Also, just today he applied for a job at one of my competitors and has set up a time to meet for an "informal" chat.

 

[weenor]

He is my only full-time employee. I have 3 part-time employees that do not have access to work computers. I am really upset by the situation as I had put a lot of trust in this guy. We are a new start up and he is the highest paid employee. He knows that we have put everything into the business and it is a sink or swim situation for us. He is strictly a 9 -5 man and never works overtime or out of his normal hours. Would you simply fire him and refuse to give a reference or ask him to resign? I have pages and pages of reports showing him using the internet for his own personal use. We live in a realatively small city with extremely low unemployment, so he will have no problem walking into another job.

If you have documented violations then fire him. You can ask for a resignation, but that could create problems with unemployment. If he is terminated for cause then he is not entitled to unemployment and your rates don't go up. I will say to you what I tell my clients..no one can prevent a lawsuit all you can do is make sure everything is well documented and consistent. Then you get out on summary judgment.

 

[kazza]

Thank you,

You have been extremely helpful.