Way to Grow

How to Fire an Employee

Not anyone's favorite subject, but some day in your business the time will come -- if it hasn't already -- when you need to let somebody go. Be prepared, and know how to handle it before you need to do it. Jill Pugh offers 10 things to keep in mind when you need to fire somebody. Some of it seems pretty obvious, some not so. Here's the list, but read it in full for the explanations:

1. Don't lie
2. Don't leak the decision to anyone who doesn't need to know
3. Don't fire someone on a Friday or right before a holiday
4. Don't email of text an employee with the news
5. Don't withhold money from the paycheck, except what is allowed by law
6. Do have a third party present [This is tricky if the entire business is just you and one employee. See my note below on this one.]
7. Do have a security plan in place (in case something turns violent)
8. Do follow your policies and procedures [and I must add, have written policies and procedures, and share them with employees]
9. Do back up the employee's computer files and contact your IT person
10. Do contact an attorney in advance if you think this termination could lead to a lawsuit.

Now, on point #6, one of the subjects of my book came close to having to fire her sole employee who had taken a second job, was attending night classes, and whose attendance at work had become erratic. On several occasions, she backed up discussions they had about the problem with written "minutes" which she signed and had her employee sign, and each got copies. Although he protested at first, she explained it was for his protection as much as for hers.

Who's In Charge -- Email or You?

An Entrepreneur article, Time Out, struck a nerve with me. Sub-title is: Never enough time? Practice these simple time management techniques and get yourlife back in control. The first section in the article talks about email, and it starts with, "E-mail is just one time management pitfall for businesspeople: Turla [Peter Turla of the National Management Institute] estimates that 65 percent of the participants in his time management seminars compulsively check their e-mail."  Uh-huh!  Guilty as charged! 

The article has some great tips on dealing with email and other time-sinks in our lives, but the one action I took has already made a difference for me. I created an email folder called "Later", and the daily news emails that I used to pore over every morning now go in there unread. If I have time later, I go back and read them. If not -- and there have been plenty of days when I have not -- I just move on.  You see, I've been something of a "news junkie".  I have now learned I can get along just fine without so much news, and I have freed up close to a half hour each day.

You probably receive some category of email that you could drag into a Later folder. If you can't get to it later, life will go on. Buy yourself some time.  The article's other email suggestions are:

• Delegate less important e-mail to employees.
• Set up different e-mail accounts--one for vendors, one for clients and one for employees--so you can organize and prioritize. 
• If it works for you, set up an automatic reply that says you check e-mail at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., for example, and advise people with urgent requests to call instead.
• Prioritize your e-mails in terms of urgency, so every e-mail doesn't require a quick reply. 
• Set aside 15 to 30 minutes in the evening to reply to detail-oriented e-mails. This will give you time to craft a good response instead of typing on the fly during the day.