My goal was to keep you out of legal trouble, save the company from a costly lawsuit and make a tough termination as easy as possible. Step 1: Decide Whether To layoff. When separating for wrongful reasons (which does sometimes occur), you don't want any evidence. Your employee will likely sue you for wrongful termination if you answer yes to one or more of these questions. Of these 2 processes, I like the first method best because it forces you to redesign the work before you lose the personnel. When the employee can't hit a deadline, then you don't give him time sensitive work. On the day of the firing, the surviving employees feel confused, feel guilty for being "a survivor" and feel emotionally drained. They must know how to layoff an employee while limiting their liability if the case goes to court. Usually when you want to get rid of a sick or disabled employee, it's not because he or she's infirmed. The dismissal and reprimand letters need to be precise and represents the professionalism of a business's policy.

o The political fallout from terminating the employee could risk your job and career. You're now open to improper bias claims from the "bad" ex-employees. This will stop an ADEA wrongful termination claim. When someone's employment date is off by a few months, then this is not big enough to qualify. The more likely outcome is the jobholder ignores your warnings or only gives a halfhearted attempt to increase.