For reasons that I will never understand, one of the most popular searches on this site is “how to announce an employee is leaving.” We’ve talked in the past about how to announce that (be straightforward and just say it), and we’ve talked about the even more inexplicable fact that some companies don’t announce it at all.
But we haven’t talked too much about the mechanics of announcing that an employee has been fired, and that can be a lot trickier. Over at the Intuit QuickBase blog today, I give some advice on how to communicate a firing to the rest of your staff. Please check it out here.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article Allison!
Here’s a tip on how not to “do” a firing –
- call everyone with an office in individually to let them know someone has been let go, not for any real performance issue, but because they’re “not the person to take us to the next level” and then informally put them on notice.
- have the new person start an hour after the old person left, and don’t tell anyone you’ve made the change.
- never make any formal announcement about the new director-level person, or any mention of the predecessor being gone. Continue to act like everyone else ought to be okay with this and just “get it.”
Thank you so much for posting this! It’s particularly important to tell people’s team members (e.g. assistants who work with an individual directly) that said individual was fired. I found it quite awkward when a senior team member just disappeared and no one said anything for over two weeks.
Where I work is pretty good about this, but a number of years ago I was on vacation and missed an announcement at a staff meeting about why someone left. I was looking for him when I got back to the office someone had to tell me “Oh yeah, the police caught up with X – they said he’d been embezzling from his last job and they eventually found out.” Ouch.
Also, I was just reading the comments from one of the linked older posts, which got me thinking. I think in normal circumstances (bad fit, sup-par work, etc.) it’s best just to say someone is moving on and you wish them the best. However, IMHO, if (and only if) there was some sort of clearly egregious violation of the rules (e.g. harassment, embezzlement, punching someone, not replacing the milk) it makes sense to share this (with only the basic details) so that employees know that (a) these issues are taken seriously, so don’t do them and (b) if you follow the rules, we won’t fire you out of the blue. (E.g. “Unfortunately, due to some comments that violated our anti-harassment policy, today is Bob’s last day. If you have any questions regarding our anti-harassment policy, please speak with HR.”).
AAM–As long as the employer can back up their claim, would an employer be risking (losing) a lawsuit by doing this? I think that litigation is the reason that there are so many really weird responses to terminations.
You know, there’s a real argument to be made that it can be useful to be very transparent about the reasons for a firing, so that you reinforce in your culture the idea that standards are high / harassment isn’t tolerated / etc. You’ve got to have the right kind of culture to do this though, or you risk coming across to other employees as not preserving the fired employee’s dignity. So it’s a delicate balancing act.
“As long as your staff understands how performance problems are handled, a firing shouldn’t lower morale. In fact, sometimes exactly the opposite happens – since, after all, keeping low performers on staff is typically a huge morale drain for high performers. If your staff has spotted the problems, they’ll often be relieved when those problems are resolved.”
This. 1000x this.
Low performers and slackers are not only not adding value – there is a real financial cost to this far beyond their salary. When you tolerate sub-par performers you will always generate resentment with the top percentile. Always.
Every day businesses keep the slackers while driving away the people they need the most…and fail to see the cause and effect ratio which applies.
Alison – did you mean “within six weeks?”
“Today was Amanda’s last day. We wish her the best. Her projects will be temporarily handled by Luis until we hire a replacement, which we hope will happen with six weeks.”
Whoops. Yes, I did :)
Thanks for the comments! I’d love it if you’d also share your thoughts in the comments over there, since it’s good for them to know that people are engaging with my content :)
Based on my experience:
If fired:
” is no longer with the company.”
If laid off:
” is no longer with the company and we wish him well in his/her future endeavors.”
Interesting. In my company, lay offs would just be called that or something close to it (“position was eliminated”). “Joe has left the company” with no announcement from Joe means he got canned. Sadly, we’re lucky to get an announcement – usually the first inkling someone has been fired is getting a bounceback when you email them.
If the person wasn’t performing, it’s useful for staff to know. Or if the person was a high-achiever and left for some other reason, it’s also important for staff to know that – otherwise people doing good work will think “Oh man, I’m probably next,” which can hurt morale.
I still remember resigning from one company, and my boss immediately sends an email to the whole department with the header “SMITH RESIGNS!” Yes, it was in all caps.
You would have thought I was President Nixon. The text of the email however did not say, “Our long national nightmare is over…”. He was actually quite gracious in the email, but the header was a little jarring and created some buzz for a week or so.
I love this story. That’s hilarious.
I once got a phone call from a coworker saying, “Mary hasn’t come in for the last month. I heard a rumor she was fired. She was our project manager and now no one is doing anything on the project. Do you know what we’re supposed to do?” I begged our talent management to adopt a rule of announcing, “Mary is no longer with us” if details of the exit should remain confidential. They insist on telling managers only. If they want to keep people from knowing, don’t they need to prop a dummy in her chair?
Your other point is a good one. Mary had been fired, and confided in me privately that she was told it was due to a long-standing pattern of poor performance that she came as a complete surprise to her. Could that really be true? If we had a clear policy of progressive discipline I’d doubt her story and consider even such a secretive action to be probably a fair one. But we don’t.
Yes. It could totally be true. The company at which I work plays these games with people all the time. It’s really sad.
Great responses AAM. I have unfortunately had to fire staff in the past and it is miserable enough to have to do it let alone handle the awkward aftermath. Lucky for me, the majority of the time it was clear that the staff member was a low performer so there was more relief than anything. Now in the cases of the posting company info on facebook and stealing from a customer (yes these things happened- blah) staff want to know all the details. I never discuss them, but my experience has been that the fired staff member contacts staff they were friendly with and give all the gory details themselves. This removed me from having to explain anything.
I wish my company’s suggestion box was still truly anonymous – I would suggest all the managers start reading your columns AAM.
For firings – no communication. Usually, a firing is not too much of a surprise since the person affected has been talking about the stuff leading up to it anyway (99% of our firings are attendance related). You can often make all the errors in the world and they’ll really work with you, but dangit don’t get the flu and a flat tire in the same year. (slight exaggeration, but not by much)
For layoffs – they will announce the layoff but not specifically who is let go. Sometimes we have been told the number of people cut from each location/department. We’re in customer service so it’s not like you have ongoing projects that need continuity, but the last layoff included an evening manager at another location. Evening staffing is reduced and we needed help from that location and no one told us about the management change. It was jarring and almost ended up negatively impacting our clients. After layoffs everyone just starts counting on their fingers who is gone. The last layoff was especially tramatic. The company told us it was economy related but also performance based, then wouldn’t tell any of us what the performance part of it was. Some of the people let go were clearly deadweight, but some were hard workers who did a good job. Management wouldn’t tell us what the problems were, but did tell us that we all needed make sure we were working hard not to make it on the cut list in the future. Morale went in the toilet. Then, within a month we hired a bunch of people from a competitor’s office that the competitor was closing. So clearly the economy was just an excuse used to fire a bunch of people – though since it was termed a layoff at least they got a severance package. People were so angry and scared and confused by the whole situation that management felt an announcement needed to be made that we should not resent the new people. :eyeroll:
For voluntary leavings – it’s jumbled. If you’re well-liked and/or in management, then you get to work out your notice. Since you’re still there, you have time and access to the company email to send out a goodbye email. For anyone who is not a particular favorite and is not a manager, you have to be prepared to leave the same day (or next). Even so, no announcements from management. Our corporate communications department will announce when an executive is leaving the company though.
And yes, I would say there are other areas of poor management as well.
Occasionally the staff would have to know of a firing — somehow it’s best to make an announcement with no comment — you can’t have rumors, but then again, rumors will spread, so the rumor mill / smoke signals might handle that without management having to say anything.
Layoffs? Yes, discuss them. Every place I’ve been has always had a meeting of “mother hen” and her “chicks” — management calls everyone together after the massacre and tries to calm everyone down — usually unsuccessfully, but , that’s what they do after a layoff.
If someone leaves voluntarily – works out their notice – then the word goes ’round, and almost always it’s peaceful and civil. It’s rare that someone wants to “go out in a blaze of glory.” The person should be allowed to say good-bye.