Employee Terminations: Doing It Right

The toughest job for most managers is terminating a colleague.

From the legal perspective, the challenge is to minimize the organization’s legal exposure and conduct the termination meeting in a way that will maximize the prospect that the terminated employee will quickly move on to alternative employment.

For each employee termination, there are legal and human resource questions to answer. A bungled termination can be very expensive. The way a termination is conducted can significantly add to the cost of an employee termination.

On the legal side, here are some of the questions that need to be answered: Is there “just cause” for termination? If not, should the employee receive working notice of termination or termination pay instead of this notice? How much termination pay should the employee receive? How long should employee benefits be continued? Should the employee be offered a reference letter?

On the human resource side: Who will attend the termination meeting? What will be said at this meeting? What happens if the employee gets really upset or angry at this meeting? How and when does the employee return Company property? How and when is the news of the termination communicated to staff and clients? Should an outplacement counsellor be retained?

Each employee termination is different.

The MacLeod Law Firm is partnering with Lotte Struwing of Lasting Solutions: HR Consulting and Coaching to offer a three hour seminar to employers on employee terminations on February 12, 2014 in Barrie, Ontario.

To register, click here http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e8rrg7zg591fa8ec&llr=xoo86bdab

If you have a question about an employee termination, please contact our Managing Partner, Doug MacLeod at 416 317-9894 or [email protected]