firing

How to fire someone, being let go, preparing to lose your job — all your questions about workplace firings are answered here.

my coworkers were fired … am I next?

A reader writes: For the last three months, I’ve worked at a small company doing a job I love. But there’s been some weirdness lately that makes me worry about my job. Here’s what’s going on: multiple people have been fired in a three-month period. They were all “not good fits” for various reasons that […]

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I was fired for taking initiative (and undermining my manager)

I’m on vacation today. This was originally published in 2016. A reader writes: Last summer, I decided to re-enter the workforce after five years of raising my kids. I applied to a bunch of jobs that I thought I could do, and got an interview at this one very small  company (~20 employees). The people I interviewed with […]

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I had to fire someone and I feel like a failure

A reader writes: I’m in a position that I’ve never been in before. In 2018, I took on a really exciting role with a new company building a team from the ground up. I hired a handful of people, and got to work setting up the new team and really helping to grow a new […]

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my employee fired someone whose mother had died the night before

A reader writes: I have a manager who works for me, Ezra. He has an employee, Fergus, who has been having performance issues and has been verbally reprimanded as well as had his performance issues documented with HR. While Fergus is a very intelligent and respectful person, he simply does not possess the skills needed […]

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should we let an employee resign instead of being fired?

A reader writes: I am the director of a pretty independent division in my company. I do most of the supervision but have been having my assistant director, Mark, take on more supervision tasks as a growth area. Some of the staff are co-supervised depending on work assignments. A junior employee in their first year […]

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I can’t fire a terrible employee

A reader writes: I’m the manager at a growing professional services firm. I’m in charge of a lot of things, but the company owners have the final say in hiring or firing, and I’m stuck in a situation where the owners won’t fire a terrible employee. Bad Fit was hired for a position that it […]

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