Firing An Employee And Your Risk

Firing An Employee | Why You Should Know Your Risk

Let me answer the question in this title straight away. You must know your risk level because it tells you which roadmap to use for your termination. Without knowing the risk level, you'll make mistakes when firing an employee that will cost you a bundle.

For example, if you treat a low-risk termination like a high-risk one, you'll give away more severance than you need to. Therefore, you must make a risk determination before you ever terminate a worker.

How do you find out your risk? In the past, we often decided based on gut feeling, and you can still use this approach today. You can intuitively feel which workers will sue and win a wrongful termination lawsuit. From these feelings, you can then classify the termination as low, medium or high-risk.

I don't know about you, but I hate using gut feeling for such an important matter. To make this more accurate, I developed the Termination Risk Estimate & Protection System™. This is the only method I know in the marketplace which gives you an effective procedure for estimating your termination risk. Chapter 4 of the Employee Termination Guidebook shows you how to use this proprietary system.

Whether you use gut instinct or my Termination Risk Estimate & Protection System™, how you terminate workers at each risk level is straightforward...

With a low-risk termination, you can simply fire the worker or lay her off with a handshake. You don't need to give a severance unless you feel morally compelled to.

With a medium-risk termination, you terminate the employee directly. As part of your severance package, you offer the employee some extra benefits in return for her signature on a release of claims. This approach keeps you out of court most of the time.

With a high-risk termination, you don't terminate the employee, but negotiate her resignation. You give her a healthy severance and she gives you a release.

By following these road maps for each risk level, you're terminating properly at the lowest possible cost. To learn more about how to terminate correctly, click firing an employee.

Website Terms and Privacy Policy

Resources