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Comment by xuki | Hacker News Reader

Not sure if this is a stupid question. How do you fire people? Do you need to give them any buffer time (e.g., 1 month, just like you can give 1 month notice before resign)? How about the potential damage they could leave in that time?

I'm just curious.

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Not a stupid question by any means- it's an important one!

In my case it's done based on the original contract, which provides for 30 days notice.

Then what kind of work do you ask your employee to do in the last 30 days?

It's safer if you terminate them immediately and just give them 30 days severance pay, which is the same thing.

I'm not sure I'd trust some people not to have a negative reaction and try to sabotage their project.

Agreed. It's easy to get worked up about paying for nothing, but the potential downside is often greater.

Depends on the person and the circumstances of leaving. In most cases of firing or redundancy (vs. because they quit) it's safer to just pay them for the notice period but not let them to come into work anymore (severance). If they weren't that useful to begin with, you're not exactly missing out. If you're letting them go in some amicable way, it may be different, but I'd imagine you'd want to be very careful they won't do any damage.

Out of interest, what kind of evidence/due-diligence/etc. do you need to make your case for dismissal?

Do you have issues with people attempting to sue for unfair dismissal?

There's a big difference between working with employees, something I know very little about, and working with contractors, which I have much more experience with.

In the case of a contractor, it's possible to simply end the engagement without the same burden of evidence or due diligence.

I give them a warning.

"Do x, y, z or else you're going to be fired."

It's effective because - as it just happens to turn out - nobody ever wants to be fired.

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