Sticky Management Issues

Good Reasons to Fire Employees

In Firing Employees Who Don't Get Fired Up, I shared the comments of a couple of leaders who do not hire unimaginative employees and unceremoniously fire those who do not regularly produce their companies' next great ideas. While I agreed that employees lacking creativity should rightly be removed from positions that require innovative thinking, I also declared that effective leaders have critical responsibilities between hiring and firing employees. But how do we know when it is time to fire an employee?

What are some really good reasons to fire an employee, beyond the obvious egregious transgressions like theft and blatant EEOC violations? What are the clues that we have done all of the employee developing, encouraging, coaching, disciplining, and warning; and all of the system creation, process optimization, and resource provisioning that a leader can and should do before letting a struggling employee go?

Under what circumstances is firing the only answer? Please email me your thoughts at malika@wrightwayconsulting.com.

I will collect your responses to this sticky management question and share your ideas with readers in an upcoming post.

In the meantime, consider this situation: a long-term supervisory employee who used to be a departmental star, has had an abysmal 12 months of performance, in terms of results, attitude and effort. He has had the attitude challenges since he was hired 6 years ago. The effort and results challenges began last year and have been the focus of this employee's development plan for the last nine months. The company is tightening its belt and is requiring an immediate reduction in personnel costs. Should this long-term star employee with recent performance troubles get the axe?