From someone who deals with employment law, agreed.
You put someone on “a plan” simply to document their failure to improve their job performance. It’s remarkably easy to win a wrongful termination suit, even in a right-to-work state.
The problem generally isn’t the law, it’s risk-paralyzed companies and poor managers.
I worked for a company that was absolutely ruled by HR and was able to fire people without a problem. You just learn to start the process of warnings and documenting earlier on, that’s all. I would never have waited two years; even for a good employee, two months in a row of bad stats and we’d be having a documented discussion. If it was a legitimate issue - like a rough patch - okay, it’s documented. If not, I didn’t want to wait even longer. Generally we did verbal warning, written warning, final warning, PIP at minimum, and sometimes more, but if you work at it you can get through the process pretty quick.
I had one employee that HR claimed we could not fire based on performance. Her performance was lousy for years and nobody did anything about it. When she was moved to my team, I tried to discuss it with her and she literally shouted me down. I went to HR to immediately discuss a written warning for the insubordination and a PIP for the performance, and they said that legally it would seem suspect since we never fired her about her performance despite dozens of warnings. Well, her attendance was lousy and she hadn’t been warned so she went on an AIP instead (attendance improvement plan). I caught her late back from lunch by five minutes twice and she was fired. Draconian, sure, but it got her out of there. (For the record, she literally swore and yelled at customers; she needed to go.)
People just need to have the cojones to get the job done.
Oh, and she filed for unemployment. We fought it. She lost.
After twenty four years and eleven months of good and loyal service? Because that bum was going to retire next month so I fired him so I wouldn’t have to pay him a pension.
It’s the employer’s *right *to fire him. That doesn’t mean it is nice, fair, decent, or good business practice. Why does everyone I’ve ever had this debate with not seem to understand the difference between a right and something a person should, in fact, do?
Because there is a very obvious power difference between employer and employee and employees are / should be “protected” from unfair practises.
Actually, no. It’s not the employer’s right to fire someone for the sole purpose of screwing them out of retirement compensation. That’s a good way to run afoul of federal law.
I was making a normative statement, not a positive one.
Didn’t look that way to me.
Either way, you’re wrong.
This is the part that doesn’t make sense.
If his performance has been so bad for the last 2 years, why hasn’t his manager had him in for talks about this, given him special help, set specific performance goals, set consequences for failure to meet those goals, etc.?
Why have they just let it go for over 2 years, with no action taken, and no attempt to get this guy help so that he can perform up to par? It doesn’t seem like much of a performance review system, if they don’t do anything when the performance is rated so poorly. Seems like the problems in this department go a lot higher than this one employee!
What boggles my mind is that employers are expected to coach an employee for better performance. What’s the point of a review if not to take action as a result of the review? At some point, even the most reasonable person has got to recognize futility when he sees it. After two years of the worst performance reviews you could possibly get, I’d have thought my ass was grass.
I work for a law firm, and certain employees are classified as “litigation risks.” Anyone who falls into a protected class is a litigation risk. If you don’t get rid of them within their 3-month evaluation period, it’s likely that the only way you’ll get rid of them is if they quit or do something horrendously outrageous.
If an employee comes in drunk or high, you can’t fire them. You can help them get into rehab. Maybe after they come in totally incapacitated 3 or more times and aren’t showing up for their meetings or therapy, you just might be able to squeak it through.
You can fire anyone you want to fire if you do the paperwork and have 15 lawyers tighten up your case. Unfortunately, this usually entails tightening up on all employees, especially in the areas of weakness you want to fire the person for. It can only be presented as a problem if the rest of the staff isn’t doing it. ’
“At will” employment is a joke.
Your boss was going to fire a guy two days before Chrismas? What a prick.
It’s not all that difficult to do it right. Spell out the expected standards, and measurements. Document when an employee doesn’t live up to them and apply the same standards to everyone - is that so hard to understand?
If there are specific issues, or training that someone needs to perform their job (and by this I mean issues that arose only after hire) then arrange it - that’s not so hard right?
Having been on both sides of the coin, I studied employment law (not in the US) and tried to get rid of an unliked employee. I have also been on the receiving end of what (I thought) were unfair disciniplinary decisions.
I was discinplined for attending a (free) 1/2 day seminar without informing my supervisor. Problem is that I didn’t have an onsite supervisor, was at a senior manager level and genuinely believed that my time was mine to manage (the seminar was work related BTW). The probelm arose out of GENUINE differences in expectations - if I had been aware of an expectation that I would inform, then it would have been done. This sort of situation calls for proper procedures.
I have also been called upon to fire my associate to prove that I wasn’t having an affair. My partners (yes I was a partner in the company) had taken it into their heads that I was screwing her (I wasn’t, I am happily married) and asked me to prove I wasn’t showing favourtism by dismissing her - great reasoning right?
Sorry I have been rambling a little - the upshot of what I am trying to explain is that in an employee / employer situation, the employer (generally) holds the “power” cards - proper procedures for dismissal mitigate this power difference in the call for employees to be treated with fairness and balance.
Agreed. What is the name of the company so that I can avoid working for them or using their products/services? Since he’s the CIO it would stand to reason this is the norm for the company.
I do believe the right answer is a cross between the two. Some states are “right to work” states, and you can be let go pretty much for any reason.
Same situation, a few years back, that I;ve documented here. Basically, I had a woman working for me (Rachel’s predecessor) who was doing her job very poorly, and was openly defiant of my suggestions to improve her job performance. Long story short, I was able to fire her only by writing a zillion memoes documenting her piss-poor performance over a period of months, at which point HR gave her over six months’s salary and then refused to let me fill this vital position (thousands of students were paying fees for her to provide a service that was no longer being provided) until her absurd severence pay had been long since paid off. Lesson? To me, it was “accept incompetence rather than ask for improved performance.”
There’s your problem. One of the points of these reviews is to catch the people who aren’t pulling their weight.
The guy got the lowest grade two years in a row and nothing was done about it? That’s very bad management. he should have been put on a plan with dfined goals and timelines. If he doesn’t manage that you sit him down again. If this doesn’t work then you move to get rid of him.
All managers should be aware of this process.
Outside of gross misconduct that’s how almost everyone is fired here as we don’t have “fire at will” laws.
The CIO should be giving his managers shit for this situation not HR.
Vox Imperatoris, you argue that companies should be legally allowed to fire anyone for any reason. In this particular case, you’re arguing against so-called protected classes, who cannot be fired on the basis of their membership in those classes. Why should a company be able to fire an employee because of his membership in such a class? Do you not believe in the government’s legitimate power to regulate this area, or do you believe that it is a matter of good policy to allow, say, race-motivated decisions to damage someone with no legal remedy? If it’s the latter, walk me through how you determine that the costs outweigh the benefits.
I believe any employee should be able to sue any employer at any time for any reason.
It’s called the Attorney’s Full Employment Policy, now everybody gets to play.
I take great joy that for at least once lawyers are being hoisted by their own petard 