my employee fired someone whose mother had died the night before by Alison Green on February 2, 2021 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 […] Read the full article →
should we let an employee resign instead of being fired? by Alison Green on January 13, 2021 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 […] Read the full article →
I can’t fire a terrible employee by Alison Green on November 10, 2020 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 […] Read the full article →
can you fire someone in the midst of a pandemic? by Alison Green on April 7, 2020 A reader writes: In the weeks before the outbreak hit, I was preparing to put someone on my team on a performance improvement plan. We’ve addressed my concerns about her work in performance reviews and will see some improvement, but it keeps slipping so the improvement plan will be the last step before letting this […] Read the full article →
how do we handle firing an employee in an open plan office? by Alison Green on February 12, 2020 A reader writes: I’m an HR administrator at a company with about 150 people across a few offices. I’m the only on-site HR person at my location, which has about 25 employees. Our office is entirely open plan, with the exception of a few fish-bowl style, glass-walled conference rooms. There aren’t even dividers between desks, […] Read the full article →
the way a coworker was fired has me worried for my own job by Alison Green on November 26, 2019 A reader writes: Recently the marketing director at my company (lets call her Tori) got fired after 5+ years, and the way it went down has made me feel really uncomfortable. Now, Tori was not particularly great at her job and was prone to being confrontational and unpleasant at work, so most people in the office weren’t […] Read the full article →
should I tell an employee the real reason I’m firing him? by Alison Green on November 25, 2019 A reader writes: I manage employees who start with a three-month probationary period. I have a current probationary employee who has not taken direction well, has acted defensively and challenged basic instructions about how to do his job, has rolled his eyes when provided with feedback on how to do certain tasks, and ironically who […] Read the full article →
how do I explain being fired for sharing confidential info with a friend? by Alison Green on July 17, 2019 A reader writes: This is a two-parter: 1. How do I tell potential future employers why I got fired and have them still want to hire me? 2. How do I explain to those potential future employers that the only reason I got fired was because I was ratted out by a coworker for a […] Read the full article →
how to announce a firing to the rest of your staff by Alison Green on May 29, 2019 A reader writes: Can you please provide me with an email script to inform my employees that someone has been dismissed? I answer this question — and four others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to […] Read the full article →
is there a best time of day to fire someone? by Alison Green on May 20, 2019 A reader writes: I know you’ve talked a lot about the kindest ways to fire someone. I was wondering what your opinion is on the time of day it’s done. Recently one of my coworkers was let go. At the end of the workday, another manager ushered everyone else who was around (we’re a small […] Read the full article →