I am interested to know if Dopers generally think firing is a bad thing or not, and why? Answers could be couched in terms of morality (frex, firing hurts people’s feelings, therefore it’s bad), social utility (firing allows buisinesses to operate more efficiently, so while bad for the firee, good for the bulk of employees and customers), political ideology, whatever leads you to your opinion.
Secondly, if you think firing is a bad thing for whatever reason, do you think it’s worthwhile to lessen the negative effects on unemployment? (Frex, libertarians age generally not disposed to use government powers unless absolutely necessary)
To lead off, I think firing is a bad thing. I understand that sometimes a business encounters employees who either can’t or won’t do their jobs, or who are so disruptive to other people that have to be fired. But it’s still a bad thing socially, with lots of potential for hurt feelings and guilt all round, and in a society with a safety net as skimpy as ours is, the resulting unemployment can be personally devastating.
I understand that sometimes the fired person brings it upon him or herself – and that sometimes, it is absolutely not the fired person’s fault. But in either event, the potential for personal and social harm is there (we’ve all heard about the fired employee who returns to the workplace and “goes postal”). And fired people don’t just vanish into the aether when they’re fired, they find other jobs and maybe create problems there, or they don’t find work which creates a whole new set of problems. They may no longer be a problem for the particular firm they were fired from, but they are still a part of society, and it would be to everyone’s benefit, ultimately, if fired people had some kind of support that lets them get a new job, and maybe get help if they have some kind of ongoing problem that makes it difficult for them to Play Well With Others.
If people are incomptent at their jobs, are irresponsible with regard to showing up on time every day and working their whole shift, are backstabbers and/or serial bullies who operate on the principle of divide and conquer, if they are thieves, if they singlehandedly destroy a company’s relations with other companies or clients, if they lied about their qualifications and it becomes apparent that they do not have the skills to perform their jobs, if their presence is a detriment to the other employees and a drain on morale, they should be fired without a safety net.
People need to learn how to behave themselves. It doesn’t help them to coddle them and excuse their abominable behavior. If they are faced with homelessness or getting their utilities cut off or repossession of their car because they fucked up on the job, so be it. They brought it on themselves. They need to learn from their mistakes. And if they never learn, they will go through their lives from job to job, bringing down the place until they get fired again. And they will have deserved it.
Getting fired hurts their feelings??? Boo fuckin’ hoo!
Firing is not a good thing. Firing is a bad thing. The reasons people get behind a firing is because it’s cathartic. Many of us have worked with a toxic worker, so we commiserate with the person and offer moral support. Most people (Donald Trump, George Steinbrenner and Vince McMahon excepted) don’t enjoy firing people, they do it because it is necessary.
The ‘social harm’ piece is a red herring. In the thread out of which your OP spun, why do you not address the social good with the fact that now someone who might be unemployed will now have an opportunity at a job. When RIFs happen, would it be better that the firm keeps on employees it can’t afford for six more months and then shut down doors for good? Sure, it’s bad that 25 people got laid off. It’s worse if 25 keep their jobs and down the line 100 lose them, plus any ancilliary businesses also are fully deprived of their income sources.
Firing is not a bad thing. Some people shouldn’t have the jobs they have for a huge list of reasons, and it is a rare employee who will, purely on his own initiative, say, “Wow, I sure suck at this. Perhaps I should pursue a different career.” and leave.
Point of clarification up front, I will use firing to refer to asking an individual to leave a job because of performance or conduct. Laying off will refer to an employee losing their job due to lack of work.
I am absolutely in favor of firing people when performance or conduct merits it. The alternative is forcing business owners, who by and large are people, too, to continue to pay someone who is not helping to advance the business. If I own a business and you come in and play video games all day and pinch the secretary’s butt and now I’m facing a lawsuit from her, what kind of government is going to make me keep paying you???
A secondary reason in favor of firing is that often the remaining workers benefit and appreciate it. To know that everyone on the team needs to pull their own weight to stay on the team is a tremendous relief. When video game dude’s work gets divided among the remaining team members who have to cover for him, they get bitter.
Now, to the question of where society comes in. Today, unemployment generally covers layoff situations and performance situations, where the employee was genuinely trying. In many cases it does not cover conduct situations. In general, I am OK with that. As a taxpayer, I’m not eager to fund someone’s unemployment because he kept pilfering office supplies.
The one area where I am absolutely more liberal is I believe healthcare should be universal and not tied to employment. If the pilferer winds up going through his savings or working at McD’s to make ends meet, tough luck. But he, and especially his children, should not lose out on medical care because of this.
Since we’re in IMHO, not GD, I’ll just say what I think, based on my experiences, without much support. Firing is usually a good thing. It is usually used by companies to remove problem employees who cannot rectify problem behavior or who have committed a single egregious transgression. Companies are not responsible for “fixing” problem workers, but they often make an effort to do so prior to taking the termination step. It often makes economic sense to salvage problem workers. From the fired worker’s point of view, firing can often be a life-changing (in a positive way) event. It is a very strong indication that one’s current path is not bound for success, that a change of direction is in order.
OK, first off there ARE various forms of social nets to help people. Food Stamps, unemployment offices, welfare, etc. And I think part of the reason they are skimpy is so that you are encouraged to LOOK FOR ANOTHER JOB. It is FAR from perfect, but, it is better than many other countries.
Plus your whole last paragraph just speaks volumes…Here’s a shocker for you: My last firing was the BEST thing that ever happened to me professionally. Kicked my ass into gear, got my priorities straight, allowed me to focus on what I wanted and needed, and a few years later I am a far better person for it. They, however, have closed shop and probably swindled many people out of their money - thank og I was gone.
Get over this pity party for those poor souls who lose their jobs. It happens all the time and people carry-on.
Firing is a great mechanism for a strong economy. You want social problems? Take away the ability to fire. You will see companies fold left and right because they cannot function properly - and then instead of a few bad apples losing their jobs, you now have a whole company of folks out on the streets.
I highly recommend you study socialist states and the former Soviet Union for a nice lesson in how wonderful societies are that don’t have firing. State-owned agencies that employ far too many people and never let them go are a HUGE burden on the rest of society.
Have you ever owned a business or managed people? It sounds like you have not.
It would be much better if , instead of firing 25 “grunts” with no regard to each one’s individual competence and contribution to the organization, top management got the sack.
I get sick of companies not only keeping on bad management, but giving them big raises while firing others who are most probably not the cause of the financial woe. These bad managers are always referred to as “key employees whose knowledge and expertise can’t be allowed to leave.”
I don’t know that I would characterize it as a red herring. In the OP to this thread, I alluded to the fact that firing might potentially be considered good for the employees of a business and for the customers. But I think what you are saying is that because when a person is justly fired, another person who’s unemployed or underemployed gets a shot at the job, hence there’s a sort of balance, is an interesting one. I’ll think about it.
Reminds me of why International adoptees now automatically get citizenship. Look up John Gaul or Joao Herbert…
“In one well-known case, John Gaul was adopted by a Florida family at the age of four. Though born in Thailand, he speaks no Thai, has no Thai relatives, knows nothing of Thai culture and had never been back to Thailand until the federal government deported him last year as a criminal alien at the age of 25. The Gauls had obtained an American birth certificate for John shortly after adopting him, and didn’t realize until he applied for a passport at age 17 that he had never been naturalized. They immediately filed the papers, but due to INS delays his application wasn’t processed before he turned 18. An immigration judge ruled that the agency had taken too long to process the application, but that the 1996 law allowed him no discretion to halt the deportation.
“In another recent instance, Joao Herbert, a 22-year-old Ohioan adopted as a young boy from Brazil, was ordered deported because he had sold 7.5 ounces of marijuana while in his teens. It was his first criminal offense, for which he was sentenced only to probation and community treatment. But because he had never been naturalized, he was considered an aggravated felon subject to deportation. He has been in detention for a year-and-a-half because the Brazilians consider his adoption irrevocable and refuse to accept him. Were they to do so, it is unclear how he would manage. H knows no one in his native country and no longer understands his native tongue.
I’d like to see more protections implemented, although I have only a vague & unformed notion of what those protections would be, and how to implement them politically and economically without strangling the business-world in red tape.
They should be able to fire me if I give them reason. I should have to be competent, reliable, and inclined to actually do the job for which I was hired. I should not be selling cocaine and marijuana in the company cafeteria, nor should I be sexually assaulting the administrative staff on the 2nd floor. And I should not be a psychotic hosebeast
But I should have some protection from being fired by a supervisor who has simply taken a personal dislike to me, or for contradicting the company owner’s opinions about Dick Cheney within earshot of a dozen other employees on my floor, or for getting a writeup in the local paper for my activist career with the Coalition for Legalizing and Unionizing Prostitution.
As it stands, I have very little recourse via which to show that I was shown the door for an inappropriate cause.
I have fired employees in the past. I liken the experience to a divorce:
An extremely unpleasant experience for both parties, but ultimately necessary if life is to continue in an acceptable manner.
Firing someone is not only unpleasant, it’s expensive and involves hiring and training a replacement. Most organizations only fire someone as a last resort, after all efforts at helping the employee improve have failed.
Firing is good if it’s to remove obviously incompetent employees. If a person can’t handle the job, or if they take off personal time and do nothing but post on the SDMB at work <looks around nervously>, it does no one any good to keep them on.
That’s why I’m in favor of firing people. If Bob consistently shows up late and Jim always has to stay 15 minutes for him, then while Jim gets paid for the hours he works, he doesn’t get to know about that time in advance, he can’t make plans to do something immediately after work if time is essential (because he might have to stay 30, or 45 minutes, too). Basically Jim’s life gets jerked around because of Bob’s nasty habits-- and that’s just one example of why someone needs corrective action, and then fired and replaced with someone else who can do the job without requiring a constant crutch from the other employees.
Don’t need to, I feel like slinking away after that…,
But to your post…it depends. A lot of good points have been made. It really sucks when someone gets fired for cause unfairly because of a pyschotic boss. That is always bad and near abusive. I’ve been there (though I wasn’t fired), and you end up wondering if you are crazy or bad when you are neither.
It really sucks when a company terminates with discrimination. Laying off all the workers who are older than 50 is illegal for a reason. But age discrimination still happens (as does gender/race and orientation - but age is the big one in the termination world).
It does suck when a company lays off a lot of workers for no reason other than to increase profits, or lays off people when incompetent managers have created financial problems - and they walk away with large payouts and/or remain employed.
It does suck when 3,000 people are laid off from a large corporation in a restructure. But I’ve been involved in some of those analysis, and that decision has never, in my experience, been made lightly. Senior management feels that the alternative will be laying off 6,000 people six months later. Sometimes businesses need to take drastic steps in order to stay solvent. And while offshoring and outsourcing and being replaced by technology suck when you are the guy getting laid off, if it is the only way to keep your cost of goods competitive in the marketplace, it will be the only way you stay in business. The market is harsh, and WalMart wants you to cut your price by 20% or they’ll buy from someone else who makes his gizmos in China. And I’ve never seen a RIF of that scale that didn’t involve management leaving as well - sometimes before or after the RIF date and somethings with a different cover story. My last Senior VP took early retirement as part of our last RIF - and in doing so he probably saved three jobs.
But it doesn’t suck when you fire someone for cause who hasn’t added value to the company and its a cause for joy when they’ve subtracted value. Few want to carry dead weight. If Barb and I get the same paycheck ever week and I show up at 8:00, leave at 5:00 and work my butt off, and she strolls in at 9:30, takes a two hour lunch, a fifteen minute smoke break every hour, and strolls out at 3:30 with “you’ll need to finish these up today, I ran out of time” am I going to throw a party when her ass gets fired - you bet! Hopefully we will hire someone who actually works when she comes to work. And its a cause for joy if I own the company and I’m carrying Barb’s salary and she seems to be wasting every moment I pay her - most small businesses can’t afford that - and even if they can, they aren’t running charities for the lazy. And non productive workers hurt the large companies, too.
