Confessions of an Office Manager; When a Termination Goes Wrong
Managing an office also entails managing staff members. With this comes the responsibility of having to fire employees who are not meeting expectations. This is something that I have had experience with and done many times, but one particular individual made the situation quite stressful and one that will not be forgotten any time soon.
The employee that was being fired was one who performed relatively well and did his job correctly. The problem was that he did not follow certain guidelines, was combative with other employees and was resistant to corporate training programs and often made his negative opinions known to others. An example of this would be his extreme reluctance to participate in the office training program.
As a customer oriented business, the company had mystery phone shoppers call in. Employees were graded on their performance on the phone and this staff member continually scored poorly. This brought down the overall average for the entire team, and often made them miss out on incentives. This employee made it known that he did not believe in the training program and did not care if he did poorly or not.
Company procedure required that I have an impartial witness there during the termination process. For this particular employee, I was happy that there was someone there to experience this particular situation. For the termination process, the company requires documentation as to the reason for termination. The employee needs to sign this paperwork and has the opportunity to document any grievances or concerns that he may have. In reviewing this information with the employee, he was very combative and questioned the validity of the termination. He did not believe that his actions warranted the termination. Because of this, the employee eventually refused to sign the paperwork.
At this point, I asked him to return all company property and vacate the premises. Since he believed that he was being wrongfully terminated, the employee demanded to speak to the owner of the business. As the owner was not on site, I explained to him that the owner was behind the decision for termination. This was still not sufficient for him, and he refused to leave the business. He stated that he would not leave and would either need to talk to the owner in person or be forcibly removed. At this point, I contacted the local police department to handle the situation as it was out of my hands. Shortly thereafter, several police officers came to the business and spoke with the disgruntled former employee. They quickly were able to get him to leave. He finally gave in to reason, since it would be better to leave on his own with no consequences as opposed to being taken in custody and having charges brought against him.
Terminating an employee is never an enjoyable task. This is certainly the case when the staff member is combative and does not realize why he is being fired.
Contributed by CareerConfessions.com a collection of inside stories from the workplace.
