Terminating an "At Will" U.S. Employee - Factors to Consider

When terminating an "At Will" employee in the United States there are 3 factors to consider:

By Kevin Muir, Author of the Employee Termination Guidebook
www.employeeterminationguidebook.com

(Author’s note: As you read this article, you’ll notice I use "he" to describe the problem employee. Please be aware I’m referring to a problem employee of either gender.)

Factor #1: Fight Or Flight… How The Problem Employee Will Take Advantage Of You

Even when you don’t tell him directly, the problem employee always knows he’s “on the bubble” and may be fired soon. It’s almost as if he can read your mind.

This wouldn’t be a problem if the employee would take the hint and improve his performance and behavior. But, this seldom happens because a bad apple remains a bad apple. Instead, you’ll notice that his behavior will get worse. He’ll either:

Begin an intimidation campaign against you to save his job, or,
Become a zombie doing little work.

You’ll notice these behaviors match the “fight or flight” response you learned in school. If you recall, when an animal gets into trouble, there are just two reactions, fight or flight. As we’ve seen, your employee will react the same way when his job is threatened.

In either case, he's taking advantage of you and your company by taking a paycheck and not doing his job… and this will only continue if you don’t do something right away. Your only recourse is to get rid of the employee as quickly as possible.

Let me cover each of these reactions.

In my experience, most employees will decide to “fight” and carry out an intimidation campaign. Sometimes these campaigns are subtle, but often they’re very public. Here’s what happens.
He starts politicking including telling lies about you, turning others against you and destroying your reputation. He wants you to suffer as much as possible. His goal is to build up his political base and force you to back off.

In this case, you only have one choice. You must show him (and others) you’re the boss and fire him right away. You can’t have an employee undermining your authority. His malicious behavior justifies his termination.

Now let’s discuss the opposite reaction, “flight.” In this scenario, the problem employee shuts down and stops working. He’s always late to work and misses more goals and deadlines. And, he spends much of his time on the phone, in e-mail and instant messaging his friends.

At this point, the employee has accepted that you’ll eventually fire him. So, his strategy is to drain as much money as possible out of the company while doing the least amount for it. In effect, he’s daring you to fire him.

What do you do? You can try to rehabilitate him, but the employee is now too far gone. Your best choice is to terminate now ... but you need to do it right.

(By the way, this is also the best thing for the employee as well. It's clear that he's not happy and productive. It's better to give him the push to get another job that is better suited for him. There's nothing worse in life than going into a job you hate and that makes you miserable. You are actually doing the problem employee a favor when you terminate.)


Factor #2: The Problem Employee Will Destroy Your Morale and Results… If You Don’t Do Something About It Today

Suppose you decide to give the problem employee an extra chance and let him stay with the company. What happens to you and your department?

Let me give it to you straight. The employee will poison your relationships with everyone he interacts with including customers, suppliers and co-workers. This is a natural outcome to being “on-the-bubble” and having a bad attitude.

Your results will suffer because you’ll be losing customers and suppliers… and because you now have to spend so much time managing just this one employee. Unfortunately, it may take you years to patch-up these relationships.

Besides this, the employee may poison your department and company as well. Your “good” employees will see it’s all right to act badly and not do their jobs. Your department and company morale will drop, and this will further erode results.

Here’s the worst part. You’ll lose your best performing employees. They don’t want to work for a company with poor morale and terrible results. They would rather work with other winners in a positive and productive environment.

The problem employee is a cancer in your organization. This cancer spreads by turning good employees into bad ones and by forcing your best employees to leave. In either case, you must cut out the cancer at its source before it spreads further.

Factor #3: The Longer You Wait… The Harder It Is To Terminate The Employee
If you wait to fire the employee, there is a good chance you’ll never be rid of him.

Let me give you two common reasons this happens.

First, if you decide to rehabilitate the problem employee, he’ll drain all the energy from you. You’ll find yourself spending all your time managing this one employee and firefighting any damage he’s causing with customers, suppliers and co-workers. Eventually, he wears you down, but you still can’t fire him.

Why? Because firing him is admitting that your rehabilitation effort failed. (By the way, if this describes your situation, I want you to know you’ve not failed. Most problem employees can’t be saved regardless of what you do. Remember… a bad apple remains a bad apple.)

Second, by waiting to fire, you’re giving the problem employee time to build a legal case against you. His strategy is to unmask your weaknesses as a manager and document any mistakes you’ve made. You can tell when this is happening when you see him taking notes of your meetings and discover him copying important files to take home.

Soon, he’ll go to a lawyer who will tell him how to make your life miserable.. Then, you can’t fire him because you're now risking a wrongful termination suit.

So why do managers and supervisors wait to fire a problem employee… when it’s obvious you should terminate right away?

The primary reason is most managers and supervisors have never been trained in proper termination procedures… and they're afraid of legal mistake. But don’t let this hold you back. In the next section, you’ll discover an easy and low risk way to terminate even in the most difficult employees.