
How I Fire People - michaelleland
http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/how-i-fire-people/
======
asparagui
Summary: Cover your ass.

Here are the author's ideas, rewritten without the pollyannaish nonsense:

Step 1: Have a gigantic book of employee guidelines. At any point in time, you
should be able to pick an employee and find something you can write them up
for. Have the employee sign a piece of paper on day 1 that they are aware of
the book.

Step 2: Before you fire the employee, make sure you've written him up more
than once. Lay your groundwork a week or two in advance. Find something else,
and do the paperwork from step one. You don't fire an employee for walking in
on the VP banging a secretary, it's because he wasn't filing his TPS reports
properly.

Step 3: When actually firing somebody, have a witness + a recording device in
the room. This protects you from sexual harassment lawsuits.

Step 4: Explanations: Blame the economy. If that doesn't work, blame the
phases of the moon. Anything you want, but not something that is grounds for a
wrongful termination suit.

~~~
gaius
It is quite insidious. Consider:

 _We told the veterans to help the new people whenever they could, but none of
the old heads really wanted to be bothered_

But that contravenes:

 _Employees will try to increase productivity in operations whenever
possible._

He's got them all over a barrel.

~~~
run4yourlives
To be fair, he fully sees the error of the former situation and takes blame
for that personally. I don't think he was trying to do this on purpose.

~~~
MaxGabriel
He takes the blame, but he also realizes the cause of the problem and does
nothing: "particularly given that we keep track of everyone’s output and any
time spent teaching new people would reduce the build total of the teacher."

~~~
notJim
Yeah, that really stood out to me. He claimed to want to train the new people,
but also said he couldn't afford the loss in productivity. You can't have it
both ways.

------
jtbigwoo
_But in my defense, training workers is extremely expensive for a small shop
like mine. I would have had to assign one of my better guys to the task full
time for there to be any hope of success, and I simply could not afford to do
that._

We are eating our seed corn.

~~~
prodigal_erik
Your rivals (whether they make competing products or merely use their success
to bid against you for employees) net most of the benefit from your training
investment when your trainees aren't going to spend the majority of their
career with you. Vocational training becomes a
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good> when there's no mutual expectation
of longevity and loyalty. We're eating _each others'_ seed corn.

~~~
mattchew
Permit me to tilt at a windmill for a moment and point out that employee
training is neither non-rivalrous nor non-excludable. It is not a public good.

~~~
anthonyb
Not true, or rather, not completely true. It depends on whether you're talking
from the point of view of the employer or the employee.

If I'm employing someone, a competitor can't easily employ them at the same
time (sort-of excludable, up until they quit). And the costs of training an
employee are usually fairly fixed - paying for a course plus wages - so
they're rivalrous, since an extra training course will cost the same.

As an employee, on the other hand, I can certainly deny my training/experience
to those who don't pay for it (ie. it's excludable).

The original point was that maintaining a pool of skilled employees is in the
best interests of a group of companies even if they're rivals, since more
people with the skill will tend to drive wages down. If, on the other hand,
they neglect training and fewer people are available, then production suffers
and wages go up. The "public" in this case is the group of companies.

------
Cyranix
_I also write a short acknowledgment form that the employee will sign and that
confirms what happened. It makes clear that the employee was responsible and
that the reason for the firing has been explained._

When I was fired from my first programming job, my boss took this approach. I
was inexperienced and frankly quite shocked -- there had been no warnings, and
the reason cited was laughable* -- so I ended up signing it. I've come to
realize that I despise the practice. It asks a person who is feeling
vulnerable to increase their own shame, doing nothing productive for either
party. I always thought I was a careful person when it came to contracts and
such, but this was a real lesson in keeping one's guard up even when taken by
surprise.

* Namely, that I didn't deliver projects in a timely manner. Normally this would have been good cause, but instead of looking to more significant factors (bickering bosses making major changes to requirements on a daily basis, unstable platform for development, etc.) they considered the problem to be fundamentally attributable to _my slow typing speed_ of ~70wpm.

~~~
Arelius
What motivation does an employee, who is getting fired, have to sign the
acknowledgment form?

~~~
MattRogish
I've heard (never seen it done, or worked for a place that did this) that they
withhold a last paycheck, severance, whatever until you sign. Probably not
legal but it is pretty compelling at a very shocking time.

~~~
stcredzero
If a company has such poor ethics that they'd think about witholding a last
paycheck, what makes you think signing is going to prevent it from happening
anyways?

~~~
MattRogish
My suspicion was that they were bluffing. Again, this is all about 3-rd hand;
never happened to me or someone I know.

~~~
stcredzero
Even such a bluff is ethically grey, and a dark shade at that.

------
orbitingpluto
Oddly enough, many of the expectations listed are not at all desirable. The
following, quoted from the article, got me into trouble at a workplace:

• Employees will try to increase productivity in operations whenever possible.

Big no-no when management does not want to learn or is afraid of being left
behind. (I ended up cutting half of my work week by retweaking stuff.)

• Employees will use tools, jigs, and the facility in general in a manner that
minimizes wear and maximizes utility and safety.

In some of my tweaks I heavily cut down on use of paper and electricity. Also
a big no-no for some reason. (Again, mostly because the steps above required
learning.)

• Employees will operate machines and tools in a safe manner at all times.

Ever been told to fix something and you don't think it's safe? I go with, "If
it's so safe, why don't you put your hand in there?" That usually shuts them
up and brings them back to a reality where worker safety is a concern.

• Employees are expected and encouraged to maintain clear and open
communication with management about unsafe or inefficient situations in the
shop.

Attempts at disclosing severe security issues landed a firewall between me and
the president. To this day the issue is still not fixed at the branches where
I did not work.

• Employees are expected to keep an accurate time sheet, broken down by job
and activity. This time sheet will be used for production metrics as well as
for payroll purposes.

This is an issue because then they would actually have to pay you for the
overtime that you have been working. Ever been told to not include overtime
hour work in your reports and only do it orally?

• Tardiness or absenteeism

This is my favourite. A manager would often intercept me at a strategic
location where he had arranged a clock to be set fifteen minutes AHEAD and
where I would be told I was late. I had great fun choosing implausible
alternate paths as he would try to do this regularly.

• Falsification of time and/or job time sheets

Now this one is why I actually quit. They regularly wanted me to cut an hour
here and there off of the 'grunt' workers timesheets. (Archaic timesheet
system written in a computer language you have never heard of, guaranteed.) I
had issues with doing this.

• Behavior that is insulting, bothersome, or obnoxious to others

This post may qualify...

~~~
jemfinch
It's not quite clear what point you're trying to make here. This is a lot of
text, and it's clear you intended to contribute to the discussion: can you
clarify what you sought to contribute?

~~~
orbitingpluto
Someone could use the article as a guide for what not to do in an attempt to
increase job security. I was trying to illustrate that may not be always
applicable. Some discretion gauging your work environment trumps the article.

(And it was a cathartic counterpoint. This guy sounds like a great employer.)

~~~
dbecker
I think your employer was probably an exception, and most employers are more
similar to the NYTimes author.

~~~
cheatercheater
If most employers were making the outrageous demands the article author does,
I'd perpetually be out of work.

------
m104
The best teams I've ever worked for had this set of common traits:

1) On the offer day, potential employees were told there were high
expectations and no fixed rules to govern what that meant. There was leniency
in some cases, but manager/supervisor judgement was the only rule that
mattered. No handbooks or rule sets.

2) All new team members were automatically assumed to be terminated within a
month or so. This was usually true. Any new employee that didn't pull their
weight, sat around waiting for someone to tell them what to do, or lied in any
way was terminated.

3) Human mistakes (fat fingers, brain farts, etc.) were reprimanded internally
but covered, responsibility-wise, by the manager or supervisor externally. (I
got this treatment at least once a year...)

4) Repeated or dumb mistakes meant being terminated, usually within the same
business day. (I saw this happen many times. Not fun but then again they were
dumb or repeated mistakes.)

5) Lots of communication within the team. Supervisors and managers were always
available or actively participating in the projects.

In other words, there were high expectations and they were strictly enforced,
with nowhere to hide mistakes or divert responsibility. Or, more bluntly, "we
want to work with adults, not children".

Sounds harsh perhaps, but these were the best teams I've ever worked for and
no one who stayed for more than 6 months felt used, abused, or anything other
than lucky to be working with fine people. When long-time employees left, it
was to start their own businesses or go back to school and there were always a
few tears in the parting days.

Now, if you read in some book or learned in a training course that you need to
cover your butt legally at all times, give everyone plenty of chances to do
the right thing, and take everybody's situation into consideration before
taking disciplinary action, your teams are going to start sucking. Why?
Because all of those things are the opposite of management. Those things are
what you do to avoid management.

This whole article, to me, says "boy, it'd be so much easier to run this
business if I didn't have to actually run this business". Here's a hint: If
your strategy for managing a team or community or whatever is "people should
do the right thing and we should give them every opportunity to do that", then
your team's problems aren't actually your team's problems.

~~~
rnemo
I agree with most of your post, except:

 _"2) All new team members were automatically assumed to be terminated within
a month or so. This was usually true. Any new employee that didn't pull their
weight, sat around waiting for someone to tell them what to do, or lied in any
way was terminated."_

Quite frankly this just sounds like whomever is in charge of hiring in these
teams does a shit job of it. If, during an extended interview or round of
interviews, a person cannot manage to get enough of an idea about how a
candidate is going to mesh with the team that new hires often last less than
30 days, that person should not be hiring. If that person also does the firing
as well they shouldn't be allowed near personnel management whatsoever, and
their overall ability to lead should be questioned.

~~~
m104
If the goal were to minimize the number of false positives, I would agree. But
the managers of these teams had enough experience to know that they'd rather
hire one person a month for a year and only keep one gem than to spend days or
weeks trying to find that one gem and then agonize over firing them (knowing
that the hiring process is slow and expensive) when the gem loses its shine.

Having done a fair bit of hiring myself, I can't even begin to reliably
identify gems. If you know of a way or can explain how multiple rounds of
interviews can do a reliable job of identifying them, I'm all ears. I can tell
the stinkers right away I think, but gems, no that's really hard. The best
candidates I've interviewed (resumes, work experience, knowledge testing,
etc.) haven't had any better luck becoming great team members than those with
a mediocre interviewing quality.

Cause here's the thing about gems: They only work within their setting and can
be created, with some effort and skill, right out of raw material.

~~~
rnemo
I disagree with what your idea of proper hiring apparently is; to hire and
test out a lot of people often is better than to spend extra time finding the
right person. In my experience, a work environment that is a revolving door of
often failing new staff is a waste of everybody's time, whereas a work
environment with more carefully selected new staff that sometimes fails is
only a waste of management's time. Such are the burdens of management.

~~~
rscale
I agree. This sounds like bad/lazy management, and a broken on-boarding
process.

As a consultant, I've grown used to working around bad on-boarding processes
but most FTEs aren't used to jumping into existing teams without being given a
lot of knowledge. I can imagine tons of great people washing out of such a
team not for any good reason but just because they aren't used to self-service
on-boarding.

------
cldrope
That article gave me cancer. It seems like it wants to be different than other
businesses but is not.

As soon as you say "And other reasons not listed here" you just made your list
useless.

Having a huge book of rules makes it feel like an unwelcome, draconian
workplace. Just hire smart, trust your workers and fire them when they don't
meet obvious role expectations or act inappropriate.

------
inopinatus
This Paul is the antithesis of every great boss I've ever worked for. He
writes a bunch of Barnum statements, any of which are subject to the sole
interpretation of a despot and most of which are broad enough to cover almost
any behaviour.

It's an entirely negative framing of people management and defines a corporate
culture of fear. I'd never sign up for it, but then again, I've always had the
luxury of choosing my employer.

Moreover, firing on this kind of basis is knucklehead stuff. It's easy. You
steel your heart, cite a rule and pull the trigger. If you want a challenge,
trying making public sector jobs redundant. The resulting press coverage,
union hardball and politicking will blow your mind.

------
Harkins
"One of the hard lessons The Partner taught me is this: the health of the
business is more important than the well being of any one employee."

What, really, is the purpose of your business? And what makes it more
important than the well-being of an actual person?

I don't take issue with the firings recounted (well, at least the carefully-
documented public reasons he provides), but what could make this statement
true? I read it and can't find a charitable interpretation.

~~~
vacri
A business is made up of a number of actual persons. Firing one can
significantly improve the well-being of the remaining actual persons. He even
recounts this in the article, with the guy lying about his timesheeet causing
such a problem with other employees that they say 'him or me' - it has to be
pretty distressing before most people get to that stage.

------
EternalFury
You read this and you never want to work for anyone, ever again. I am no
peasant in your Feudal system.

~~~
ChristianMarks
Here here!

------
jrockway
Why would an employee consent to being recorded and signing a piece of paper
acknowledging the misbehavior? I certainly wouldn't, if only to irritate the
person firing me.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
Severance.

~~~
jrockway
I don't think low-level cabinet assemblers get severance when being fired for
incompetence.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
I'm sure that this stunt has been tried in the software industry too.

------
jcc80
This has some good points and the guy doesn't seem too arrogant or that he
enjoyed letting people go. But, I just don't think I could ever write an
article about firing people. Actually, maybe it's just the title that bothers
me - but from what I understand, the author may not get to pick those for
editorials.

------
mike626
Alternate titles...

Paul Downs: Dreadful Employer Paul Downs Cabinetmakers: The Dickensian
Workshop Reborn!

------
sanj
_We told the veterans to help the new people whenever they could, but none of
the old heads really wanted to be bothered, particularly given that we keep
track of everyone’s output and any time spent teaching new people would reduce
the build total of the teacher._

You get what you measure.

One possible way to fix this is to have a fraction of the _improvement_ of a
new worker accrue to the teacher.

------
rondon1
When you treat adults like this they will not like or respect you and will
want you to fail. Any time this boss makes a mistake his employees will make
him pay.

"Oh yeah we can't work this week because the boss told us to throw away our
safety glasses. Yes, we saw the UPS truck run into the river that probably had
the new safety glasses on them. But we are supposed to do what the boss says"

------
alan_cx
Not a hard rule or anything, but I tend the view the need to fire people as a
failure of recruitment. The wrong person was hired. Smart clauses in contracts
are pointless if you hire the wrong people. If you hire the right people, you
don't need them.

~~~
philwelch
If you fire well enough, you don't have to worry so much about recruitment.
You can either fire well or hire well, ideally both, but it can't be neither.

------
spaghetti
Sounds like Paul spent a considerable amount of time focusing on negative
things. While it's necessary for employers to protect themselves I hope an
equivalent amount of time is spent on positive things. For example if Paul
spent as much time on creative training videos for new employees as he did on
filming termination meetings he would perhaps have a more lucrative business.
It's the perpetual focus on the negative that's just lame.

~~~
vacri
So you're saying that creating a creative training video is as simple as
propping a camera on a desk and hitting record?

~~~
spaghetti
You're right that creating a training video has a larger up-front cost than
simply recording a meeting. However when the long-term effects are taken into
account the trade off is probably favorable. Something like a training video
that in theory helps the employees and makes them feel supported will probably
pay off more for the business in terms of increased employee satisfaction than
something shockingly negative and dissonant like video-taping an employee
being fired.

~~~
vacri
A couple of problems with your comments. The first is that it's not an
either/or, you can have both. The second is that recording the dismissal isn't
going to cause that much of a problem when it comes to morale, because the
person affected is no longer working there. Another issue is that recording
the meeting protects both parties from later fabrications made by the other;
the dismissed employee could make it a condition that a copy is given, or set
up their own recording easily, given smartphones today.

Recording a meeting which involves emotional distress is not 'shockingly
negative and dissonant'. It's wise for both parties, just like having a
witness is. I was recently made redundant, and although we didn't record the
meeting, my employer advised who their witness would be, and allowed me to
choose one of my own. The idea is to have a more neutral record for backup
than the two main parties at an emotional time, and a video recording assists
just like having a witness does.

~~~
spaghetti
You're right you can have both. However I feel pretty strongly that filming
dismissals will have a negative impact on company culture. Filming the meeting
is humiliating. Current employees are aware of the practice and by not
questioning it I think they'd feel complicit in the humiliation of departing
co-workers. I think this would degrade the overall atmosphere. Indeed having
witnesses is a good idea. And I'm all for employers and employees protecting
themselves. However the protection doesn't need to be cruel.

------
mossinthehole
So the people this guy fired were given expectations up front, and then
clearly told why, by their boss, that things weren't working out? I wish I was
given that luxury when I was let go from my last job...

------
obie
"Nothing is more heartbreaking than realizing that a worker who is trying his
hardest can’t cut it."

So true. I've had to fire a few people that met that criteria and it's really
difficult to do.

In a startup situation, it might be advantageous to discontinue the full-time
relationship but allow them to continue working part-time at their leisure (or
according to some schedule) in exchange for continuing to vest their equity,
but no cash.

~~~
CrLf
That reads much like "but we can still be friends". Yeah, right.

------
jnazario
actually i quite like this piece.

the hardest day as a first time manager i ever had was when i had to let
someone go in a RIF. he had done nothing wrong other than be the last guy
hired in the team. i hadn't been the best manager to him (i've since invested
myself a lot of learning management), and so i felt like i doubly let him
down.

letting people go is hard, for almost any reason, and i think this piece
captures that. i don't agree with everything he writes (i'm a big fan of
training and setting people up for success), but the two big highlights for me
are holding people accountable to clear expectations of performance, and "him
or me." while the latter sounds awful, like some jerk is putting the manager
in the middle and forcing a choice, the fact is that the team and ultimately
the company will suffer if problem employees persist.

management always seems like tyranny before you get into it, arbitrary and
capricious. while we all see bad managers from time to time who reinforce that
stereotype, good managers demonstrate the opposite, that management is
anything but fickle tyranny, or even power. it's responsibility.

------
swdunlop
I find appalling the number of comments about how horrible this man must be to
layout his expectations for employees. Obviously, he should just tell people
to "do stuff" and pay them out of sheer gratitude that they might.

In my very mercenary heart, I extend the 30-day principle as a two way
principle. If at any time I decide my employer/employee is irredeemably
unsatisfactory, I consider it my duty to break it off.

The hard part is knowing when something is irredeemable and unsatisfactory.
Having well defined responsibilities and expectations makes sure both sides
know the parameter space. Communicating with the other guy is key, too. Looks
like this fiend is doing both -- more power to him.

------
robomartin
On the other hand, at-will employment == no need for a reason (or employee
handbook). From Wikipedia:

"any hiring is presumed to be "at will"; that is, the employer is free to
discharge individuals "for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all," and
the employee is equally free to quit, strike, or otherwise cease work."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment>

I'm not a lawyer, but, my gut feeling is that if you are in an at-will
jurisdiction the easiest way to fire is to simply do a "I regret we have to
let you go" firing with no explanations. Why do I say this? Because opening
your mouth beyond that could open you up for liability and the labor
department is as anti-business as can be.

I had a really bad experience with a sales guy I hired some time ago. The
standard deal was 90 days probation. We signed a very detailed contract upon
employment that spelled out the terms. The contract was authored by my
attorney and was fully legal in California. The basics of it were that he
would get an advance on commissions as part of his weekly pay.

This is common practice with sales people. In order to provide them with a
minimum stable income you state their base pay and then negotiate an advance
on future commissions. The idea is that once they start selling they pay you
back for the advance. In this case, the advance was $1,000 per week. Put
another way, he owed me $1,000 per week and had to pay it back out of future
sales commission. It's a trust relationship: I give you money you have not
earned trusting that you'll work hard to repay it and actually earn beyond
that.

To clarify, this sales person was not getting paid $1,000 per week. His weekly
paycheck included a base salary plus the $1,000 advance.

Well, he sold a net total of $0 in six months of employment. I should have let
him go at the 90 day period but that would have been the holiday season and,
back then, I was a sucker for not doing that to people with families. I've
been on the receiving end of loosing my job at the end of the year and just
didn't want to do that to others. Fucking sap I was.

I had a stern talk with him and wished him happy holidays.

Once back he didn't sell a thing for three more months. I let him go and gave
him a full explanation as to why. I also did the math and figured out that he
owed me nearly $26K in unearned commissions. Keep in mind, this was a loan,
from me to him, based on the agreement that he would pay it back as he started
to earn commissions from sales.

Again, being a fucking sap, I told him that I would simply not pay him his
last two weeks and be done with it. That amounted to recovering just a few
thousand dollars.

A couple of months later I find myself in a hearing at the Labor Board.
Contract in hand, I assume that this is a done deal. I produced the signed
multi-page contract. He admitted to knowing all about it and understanding the
terms. I presented a balance sheet showing the math and that he owed me over
twenty thousand dollars but was willing to call it even and move on. We would
hear the decision within two weeks of the hearing.

Two weeks later I get a letter ordering me to pay him $5,000!

I consulted with my attorney. He said that we could go after the labor board
for failing to honor a legally binding contract and win. However, he said,
this is going to cost you far more than $5,000. Ten times that much, if you
are lucky. "Pay the guy and move on". So I did and learned a few very valuable
lessons.

This, BTW, to get a little political, is one of the ways votes are bought in
this country. We hear of corrupt regimes in other countries. It's the same
here, but with different techniques. In this case, the Democratic party
ensures voter loyalty by playing games like this one (favoring labor, unions,
government workers, etc.). That guy, the ace sales guy, will remember the
extra five grand he got at my expense and will bend over backwards to support
the party who got him that. The problem is that they don't understand (voters
and party) that they are destroying jobs.

President Obama is a cool guy, but if someone from another planet were to draw
conclusions based on his speeches they'd conclude that the only important
people in the US are "teachers, police, fireman and construction workers", or,
put another way "unions, unions, unions, and unions". Crock of shit.

Having a manual might be a good idea. An even better idea is to have a good
relationship with your attorney. In some industries you will need him/her
often. Thankfully this was a corner case for me. I've never had other issues
with the people I've hired. Most professionals are exactly that, responsible
and hard working pros. I am quite liberal with my relationship with those who
work for me when we all behave as responsible pros. For example, one time I
encouraged my marketing manager to take a paid week off to go see a band she
loved in the UK. That paid week did not come out of her vacation time. I paid
for it because she was doing a good job and thought it'd be nice to show my
appreciation this way. I am happy to say that I have many examples like that.

