Firing Well

> "... But repeated lapses of judgment or a habitually disruptive attitude can’t be tolerated, and we will have to part company. In plain English, I will fire you."

I'm not saying that setting expectations up front is a bad thing, but I've never had the topic of firing brought up -- ever -- in any of the many interviews I've had over my career.

And therefore, if this were brought up without my asking about their firing policies, the thought that would go through my mind would be along the lines of:

"Wow, this company must have to deal with this quite a bit in order for it to be covered like this during an interview setting. Either this place causes people's attitudes to take a major turn for the worse, or they do a terrible job at filtering out bad attitudes during the interview process."

Or...

"Was there something on my resume or something that I said during the interview that may have triggered this?"

Again, transparency is a good thing. And if I'm already asking about their firing policies during an interview, then maybe this is a good way to approach it.

But hearing it come up -- and like this -- during an interview without solicitation just reeks of a toxic environment.

In this context the advice rings true to my ear. Less so for hiring and firing across all levels of an organization.

Having had to fire people this read like a lead balloon. I have fired several people and the hardest one was the first time, but after it was over it felt good for everyone in the business.

This is really managing by fear. The manager might say "It won't be a surprise for you or me implies that this is a non-verbal understanding. Well a lot of people get paranoid when it comes to job security and might have had a bad experience so anything and everything means they are on the verge of losing their job. If I was a worker on his team I would shutter any time I saw my boss walk into my office and say may I sit down. Seems very much a scare tactic. My company when we fire someone there has been several steps taken and it is dignified. (Unless you did something illegal or unethical, than it is quick and clean with an escort out the building.) You go through a written warning. You than have a performance progresses plan written by the employee and the manager together. You may have the manager sit in your work space for a few times to make sure that the person understands their roles in action and make sure that it just isn't a lack of knowledge or training. If it is our business culture we will get a co-worker to partner up with the person to help them find their place (Or see that it might not be for them and that is okay for both parties).

There doesn't seem to be a check and balance between his decision to fire and the action. As a manager I just didn't see the person's positive side since they had a trait I couldn't stand (perception of them being lazy or a bully to their co-workers) and I almost fired people which months and years later proved I was wrong in assuming they deserved to be fired. This also saves the work place from being a homogeneous Big Boys Club.

PERSONAL Opinion : Professionals (I am assuming this is a professional position and not some low hourly wage job) normally don't get fired for them not being smart enough or the ability to improve. I find that it normally is the fault of the employer for why the relationship didn't work out due to a manger or even the negative culture of the company.

My understanding from multiple people is that this is the only thing they will say when asked for a reference. I really hope that doesn't mean that CA companies pass over folks unfairly.

- I've been in places which have tossed people out with 2 weeks notice.

- I've been in places where people have been stiffed their earned bonuses.

- I've been in places where people haven't been let back to their desks.

This beats all of them, especially if the comp is generous. It is very hard to change a manager's mind. If they're convinced it's time to go, better to encourage the move and be generous. (To stiff the employee implies a hiring decision, which was the manager's fault to begin with.)

The one caveat is some top firms allow people to spend the next few months with an office to encourage another employer to hire them away.

Sure, this probably works for this founder. And it actually helps them get people who they'd work well with. But as a general practice, its strikes me as a pretty clumsy and arrogant way of approaching a fellow human being to work with you.

As an aside, its things like this that I feel, contribute to the monoculture of white males in Tech, because I could see women and minorities who are already fearful that they wouldn't fit into a tech workplace being even more fearful after hearing this kind of talk from someone they're thinking of working for.

Can you imagine the kind of stress a minority would be under in a place like this, struggling to make connections and find people to help them navigate the process ... failing ... and having their performance impacted then remembering that the head of the company said

"I’ll tell you that the decision was made after thoughtful deliberation, and it won’t be reconsidered. I won’t suffer you the indignity of Why"

And wondering if its even wise to seek help from Above, because it could be taken the wrong way and they could be shown the door suddenly?

phew. Hopefully this doesn't gain traction with future startup founders. We have institutionalized processes for firing people for a reason.

I wonder how this works in open spaces -- which, regrettably, seem to be the norm nowadays...

Charming.

(Also, doubt if that's legal outside France, or will remain legal in France and/or the EU for long.)

The one caveat I want to add is that this should only be applied to the senior positions, not to junior ones. A junior, by definition, is relying on the management to guide his efforts, he is not expected to be managing himself, therefore he should get a fair warning and offered a process to improve. A senior, on the other hand, is expected to manage himself, including soliciting and addressing feedback on his own performance and attitude. Therefore a firing should not be a surprise to him, and if it is, that means the person wasn't pulling his "senior" weight to start with.

The second sentence seems arrogant and unnecessary, especially in the context of a meets-or-exceeds review. It seems to say the same thing as "I've decided not to fire you at this moment." What's the benefit to either the manager or employee of bringing up the possibility of the employee being fired in such a circumstance?

That said, I agree that PIPs are the worst. They're a way for scummy managers in scummy companies to... well, the common explanation is that they're a lawsuit shield, but that's not really true because it's actually harder to run a lawsuit-proof PIP than to just fire someone. The real purpose of the PIP is less documented and more insidious.

Companies don't actually fear lawsuits that much. They're a black-swan risk, but less than 1% of people fired will ever litigate. They're much more worried about disparagement and impaired relationships. You write a generous severance and give a good reference (which you should, in most cases) when things don't work out because, if you do things right, the odds are good that the person's career will go unimpeded, and this pays off for you because they're likely to feel good about that episode in their careers and say good things about you in the future.

The purpose of a generous severance and positive reference is to make the fired employee feel good about the company, preventing any sort of moral indignation. The purpose of a PIP is to make the employee feel bad about himself (under a parallel theory that a humiliated employee will feel weak, not morally superior, and therefore not disparage or litigate). It has almost no legal value, because wrongful PIPs are just as common as wrongful terminations. Its purpose is to shame the employee into silence. Of course, it often doesn't work, but that's a discussion for another time.

PIPs (which, considering morale, are far more expensive than severance payments) are also a common way for HR offices to claim they "saved money" on severance payments when they're actually externalizing the costs to the manager, who has to conduct a kangaroo court, and the team, which has to deal with an already-fired employee coming into work for 2 months.