She said you rated her below expectations because you showed favoritism to the "younger women with short skirts." You knew this to be untrue, and Personnel did an inquest showing you weren't the problem. Your purpose is to keep profitability and productivity up. So what does this mean for you, the manager, if you must layoff an underperforming worker? Typically the jobholder's legal counselor will ask for a positive cover story during settlement talks for a negotiated dismissal (high-risk). This means you should pay part of a worker's unemployment compensation even if he worked only one day before you laid off him. Management should not consider an employee bad-behaving if he or she cannot perform tasks contained in another worker's job description suitably and safely. So, it's unlikely a difficult worker will shape up enough to survive escalating discipline. This directive should be reasonable, ethical and well within the worker's abilities. o The higher the firing risk, the higher the chance the small business could go bankrupt, or, for larger companies, your profits will drop dramatically. o Who's eligible for unemployment compensation and what can disqualify a worker.

Writing a layoff notification is a most important step in the fair and respectful layoff of a worker. The only exception is when you can prove gross misbehavior. This is where having an employee termination form comes in handy. While you clearly can't discuss the grounds for the dismissal with your other workers, you should call them together in a meeting and explain the high level worker will no longer be working for the company. o Threatening to go to the EEOC, government authorities, the press or upper management about business wrongdoing or to assert his or her lawful rights.