Welcome to the bringing the human Back To Human Resources,
podcast, the podcast, all about the delicate balance between
people and business. And quite literally reconnecting
the to my name is Tracy Ruben, and I've spent nearly my entire
professional career in h.r., join me as I share stories
opinions and words of advice with you each week.
Hey everyone. Welcome back to the bringing the
human Back To Human Resources podcast.
Thank you so much for being here again for yet another week.
Last week, I spoke a little bit about terminations, especially
with how we approach them as people managers or HR Partners.
Anyway, I wanted to first start with the ground rules for
terminations one. Do your due diligence if you are
a manager or if you're an HR partner, You do your due
diligence, if it's an investigation, make sure you
investigate fairly and investigate.
Anyone necessary don't investigate just everybody
because then you will lose credibility with the emphasis on
confidentiality, but you should investigate or really when I say
investigate in this context, it's kind of like, interviewing
or speaking with employees who are an integral or critical part
of the investigation. To make sure that you have all
of your ducks in a row. Get all of your facts down.
Have all of your anticipated questions answered.
And obviously, as you this is going to sound terrible.
But as you do more of these or have more of these
conversations, you'll get used to it and you won't have to do
as much prep and you'll know the answers are, for example.
But yes. Have all of your ducks in a row.
Don't get caught. Not Not knowing what you're
talking about. That is like a recipe for
disaster now on the on a different note.
If you don't know the answer to something and you've already
done your prep, that's okay. Just acknowledge.
Hey I don't have the answer for you right now.
Let me get that for you and I'll come back to you not knowing
everything is a fully normal and appropriate characteristic,
like, we cannot possibly know every single thing.
So you should feel empowered and confident enough.
You say actually, I don't know the answer to your question.
Let me come back to you. And finally think about the
human element, you're talking to your terminating your speaking.
With a person, a human being a living breathing.
Emotional being don't go in there, fired up, ready to be a
jerk. Now, I will say, I have gotten
fired up in the middle of terminations, or I have been I'm
fired up to have a termination because someone has earned their
termination so much because of something that they did, that
was really bad that I'm like, oh, I am ready to go, but I
never lose sight of who I'm speaking with.
So all of those emotions and I don't want to call them like
moments of excitement because we should never be excited to
terminate someone. But I'll be frank.
When you have an employee who is problematic or who has done
something. That is vile and I've been there
you are excited for them to leave and I think it's okay to
acknowledge that within a safe space and within, you know,
within reason but you know, don't don't make them aware
that, you're excited to have the conversation or that you're
looking forward to not having this problem anymore.
I'll, I'll break that down. I don't want you to think.
I'm just like a jerk that thinks that it's exciting to terminate
people at all. At all let alone people who have
earned their terminations. That's not what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is that there are problematic people who we do
look forward to moving through because they are that
problematic. So you have the ground rules,
you know what's at stake? What's next?
Well, for me as an HR person, I like to prep new managers or
people who are new in their role so that they know exactly how to
walk into that conversation. And fortunately I work for a
company where our core values are to be kind and humble, and
they're very familial. So I rarely, I don't know if
I've ever at least not in the last couple of years, had to say
to someone, you need to approach this from a kind place.
I don't think I've ever had to do that in my, my current
company. But in my past life, I
definitely did. And so if you're in a position
where you are working with or a partner too, Two people manager
who is maybe a little bit absent of the emotional intelligence.
Let's say you should prep them on how to actually conduct that
conversation. If you are the people manager
and someone is prepping, you don't be offended, that's okay,
the prep is part of the development and part of the
learning moment. So take it and run with it.
And actually, I think everyone approaches things a little bit
differently and that's okay. But again, keep those ground
rules in mind, and always remember that we should lead
with kindness first and still, maintain our directness and
Clarity. Another thing, and I realized I
didn't say this before, You should, if you are the manager
in this scenario, you should always.
Always make sure that you are taking a partner before you
terminate. If you are in a smaller industry
or in like a mom-and-pop kind of business, you're probably not
going to have to take as many steps because you are the judge
and the jury. But if you have an HR function,
you absolutely need to make sure that you partner first because
every termination opens up the company for legal risk.
It's just a fact and it's not to say that.
When you terminate someone you're going to get sued,
absolutely not theirs. I would say that 9 out of 10
terminations are very, very cut and dry and would have no
grounds to stand on if there were any legal pursuance.
And it's not to say that every termination would lead to
someone saying, I'm going to see the company, definitely not but
from a consistency fairness and legal standpoint, the
partnership is critical. So key Your HR partner is
closed. If there's only one HR person in
your company, or maybe, there isn't an HR person in your
company at all, run it by someone who is a trusted
partner. So, let's say you don't have an
HR function in your business, you should then partner with
your supervisor or whomever is in a role that looks at the
organization on a global level. And I say that because the
consistency and terminations is really, really, really
important. The consistency and
accountability is We important. Because if you don't treat
person X, the same as you treat person.
Why you're then doubling down on your legal risk.
Not only are you not being consistent in the way that you
hold those people accountable. But you're also not considering
how that could look discriminatory.
So, always make sure that you're taking a partner and looking at
what is consistently done. So for example, Behavioral
issues, harassment retaliation, those things are pretty much
always an immediate termination and most companies, right?
Like they're all violations of policy in some way Behavior.
Maybe it's a little bit more gray.
So if we think about just violation of policy, harassment
retaliation, those things are cut and dry for the most part.
So, I want to share a story. It's a true story from when I
was at Target there. As a manager in my store who
took it upon themselves to terminate an employee because
that manager felt like the employee was not doing a good
job that manager did not first get approval from me.
The manager did not have any corrective actions on file for
the employee. And the manager basically did
not follow our policies and protocols for how we evaluate
someone's Readiness for Being managed out or terminated and
basically, in Target, you always had to have a healthy amount of
corrective actions to show that you've really done the work to
manage, this employees performance to improve their
performance, but especially when it comes down to Performance and
productivity, those things are much more gray.
So you need documentation to really support the reason for
your termination of that employee.
So again, the person the manager did not get the approval from
me. So, Found out that the person
was terminated I was like, whoa, buddy, what's going on here?
Why are you terminating an employee and like why are you
not running this by me? Like this is not your role.
Your Role is to make sure that you are holding employees
consistently accountable. Yes.
Holding them accountable but fairly and consistently and the
manager was like, what do you mean?
I don't know. I'm running, I'm running the
show. Like this is my part of the
business and I was like, that's great.
Great. But every person in this
building is part of my business and we have to we've got to
solve this problem now. So we have someone who has been
wrongfully terminated at this point.
Like are you going to bear that burden because you didn't get
approval? So now all of that is on you
like is that really what you want?
And this manager was new and roll but really needed to kind
of be like smacked over the head with this information and that's
okay. I actually had a very very A
strong working relationship with his manager.
And so being that direct and being like, whoa, what is going
on was totally appropriate for the working relationship that we
had what ended up happening is. I had to partner with my HR
partner because this now was inconsistency that I needed to
flag and my recommendation was actually to reinstate that
person and basically to say listen, we made a mistake, you
know? This person like didn't mean to
terminate you. We're really sorry for the
confusion. Here's what we need from you and
to actually use that a level as a level setting moment, and it
ended up being totally fine. We move forward with my
recommendation, my partner agreed with me.
We reinstated the person, and that person ended up working
with us for pretty long time. And everything was fine.
And then they found like a full-time job.
And that was it in some situations.
I think there are Lawyers, who would prefer not to admit guilt,
and would rather just cut their losses and say, okay, whatever
you made a mistake. Like, we're not going to
reinstate that person, but actually, I share this story
because I think that there is something important about
businesses owning their actions and mistakes.
And whether it's a business or an individual manager, it's a
big part of the Learning lesson, that comes with being a manager
and living through these experiences.
So, I share that because While it was a mistake that the
manager made, it also was like a totally active decision.
That manager knew exactly was it, that manager terminated that
person because they were frustrated with their
performance, and that was it the manager just sent the employee
home. No questions asked.
And so, I used that opportunity after we reinstated the employee
to say to the manager. Like listen, you talking about a
human being Could you imagine if you were terminated on the spot
and your manager had never had a performance conversation with
you. How would you feel?
I bet you would feel like crap because I certainly would and
that manager was like, you know, I didn't think about it that
way. I just like wanted my process to
move smoothly and I didn't want to have any Loose Ends.
And of course, I understand that I'm an HR partner, I get it.
My role in the business is to support the business and the
people, but I also care about managers having the most
productive people in their process.
But you can't treat those people like a process.
You have to treat people like people.
So that's my anecdote. Another thing that I wanted to
share is something that inspired me.
So today, I actually connected with With a CEO of a business.
So it's actually his own business and I'm going to have
him on the show in a future episode.
And he was sharing with me that his philosophy as a business
leader, is to focus on people behind the process and that and
that's in super layman's terms. And as part of his brand as part
of his company's mission, You spend a lot of time talking
about people and performance and productivity and being an agile
member of a culture and creating agile, cultures and all of these
things. And I'm telling you when he is
on this podcast, I think you are going to love him, but he
basically said people don't see, meaning managers struggle to see
that people are part of the solution.
For example, he He was saying to me that companies and managers
all have the same worries and concerns and focuses for
improvement. And it's all about people
whether its turnover or culture or whatever is people focused,
right? But when a manager talks about a
solution to those objectives, they're leaving out the people
behind that solution. I thought that that was
Insightful, because it's true. I've heard a lot of conversation
from HR people around process and how processes need to be
more efficient, more streamlined in order to improve the people
function. But actually, I think it's the
inverse. It's the people who are going to
streamline and make the process efficient.
The process can be streamlined and efficient.
If the people aren't provided the At training, given the right
opportunities, right? The right fit for the role happy
in their roles engaged. It all comes down to people.
We can't put the cart before the horse.
So it's interesting because I've heard a lot of conversation
about this how people Centric organizations or people Centric
businesses have a process and how the process is the key and
the technology is the key. But I don't think it's the key.
The key is what makes those things work.
The key is the people were talking about people-centric,
right? What does that mean?
People are at the center. So if you have a process that's
broken, you need to look at your people and it's not to say that
those people need to be terminated, but it is to say
that people have to be the biggest part of the solution.
So anyway, getting back to terminations my best advice to
To every manager or HR person is to think about, terminations in
a legal perspective, or through a legal lens through a human
lens and through a lens of fairness and consistency.
I also think that as HR managers and, as people become more
seasoned and experienced in their careers, there will be
less of this threat of lawsuit with every A nation.
Like I've found that I in the beginning stages of my career, I
used to think that every time I fired someone that they would
come back and see the company and that is pretty petrifying.
When you think about it and certainly people Sue and that's
okay, that is why you have to do your due diligence and making
sure that you have documentation, making sure that
you're consistent and that you're fair.
But people also need to be held accountable, and you can't shy
away from that. in recently emailed me saying or citing a
lot of words that normally are like red flag words and in
reality there's no reason for concern this person was being a
little advantageous As an HR person, I can go one of two
ways, either I bend the policy and I bend things to smooth
things over and appease the person, or I stand firm in the
policies. Make sure that they're
accountable to the policies and allow them to ask questions if
they have any and the latter is the best position that you can
take when it comes to being fair and consistent.
I have seen a lot of managers struggle.
Especially when Our new and their roles struggle with
maintaining control over their work environment.
And I say this because it makes me think about how we can
prevent performance Behavior or policy issues.
All of the terminations that happen.
Again, people earn those terminations.
I'm not thinking about or talking about layoffs or
position eliminations because those are outside of an
individual's control, but every other termination is completely
earned that that person worked hard to be terminated or they
did absolutely nothing and therefore worked very hard to be
terminated because I think it's pretty easy actually to stay
employed when you are doing your job like just fundamentally
doing your job, coming to work with a positive attitude and a
team mentality, right? Like if we can boil it down to
three things, doing your job coming to work with a positive
attitude and Being a team player, those three things.
If you come to work every day with those three things, you're
probably going to be able to stay away from being terminated.
I don't want to speak for everybody but that is my feeling
that's my feeling but a big part of terminations is like,
thinking about how could we set up employees for preventing this
from happening, what I've seen throughout my career?
Is that terminations happen because they are You earned, of
course, excluding layoffs and position eliminations but when
they are earned they are often earned by people who were not
the right fit to begin with who shouldn't have been hired.
As really what I'm trying to get out there or who are in work
environments where things that shouldn't be tolerated are
tolerated and that is obviously a reflection on the manager and
I have seen this time and time again where managers who are not
the right fit or shouldn't have been hired in the first?
Plays or whatever the situation is, don't have control over
their work environment over their store, over their
business, over there District, whatever the industry is and
problems. Persist in those environments
where poor behavior is tolerated.
Bad things happen, where people don't care about each other,
they're not working as a team. Bad things happen, things are
just never good in those environments and it takes a
manager. Who's really going to step in,
hold everyone accountable and level set.
What's tolerable to actually make a change?
And I have always seen that in these environments where there
are people issues or as we call it an HR employee relations
issues. It's the manager, most often who
is struggling and if we can get the manager piece, right?
The other stuff falls into place.
For example, one time in my career there was a manager who
was perceived To be really strong.
But once we put a new manager supervising that person into the
environment, we started to uncover some really bad
behaviors really poor performance and we started
peeling back, the layers, peeling back the layers and
we're we uncovered in that moment that that manager
actually was not doing their job was not going to work with a
positive attitude and was not a team player on top of finding
out that there were issues. Shoes of retaliation and like,
even though this was a while ago, these things still happen.
Like this is not a rare occurrence when it comes to a
business because businesses have people working for them and
where there are people, there's always going to be an issue.
It's just part of the human condition.
And so obviously, we couldn't tolerate the behaviors from
that, that manager. And so we needed to, you know,
part ways. But what we Lies is that we
needed to get someone who could really step in Elevate.
The morale, bring people back to the foundational elements of the
business and get it. Right.
Because at that point, so much trust has been lost from the
employees on part of the company and the manager when someone is
a bad fit that can impact the organization for years, I have
experienced it myself where someone in a Significant and
critical position was absolutely the wrong fit.
And what happened was key players including myself felt
ostracized, felt like, you know what, maybe this isn't the right
place for us and so one of the roles that terminations play is
actually setting. The example of what is
tolerable, what the right fit looks like and what is valued at
a company. So for example if you and Our
company can think about someone who is rude, not a team player.
Doesn't do their job and they stay actively employed and their
manager and HR and whomever knows about these issues.
How is it going to feel for you if that person remains part of
the team? It's not going to feel very good
so while terminations are confidential and employees who
are not a part of that conversation or Or part of the
decision-making are not going to be at Liberty, to know what is
going on behind the scenes, people know when someone is not
the right fit and people know when that person is let go
because of it. So I know I'm talking about a
lot of things related to terminations here, but I think
that terminations can be a very important part of the employment
process for teams and HR people and managers.
Because if you if you hired someone for example, who is not
a good fit and you see it fail fast.
Learn that lesson quickly, if you see that someone is not a
right fit one month after hiring them.
Don't wait that much longer like you give them some feedback.
Give them room to improve. But if they haven't, don't wait
so long. You are running the risk of
losing top talent. As a result of hiring someone
who's not top talent and not the right cultural fit and keeping
them on board. But I think it still can be
summed up that you should make sure you're doing your due
diligence, have your documentation Be fair and
consistent and remember that these people are people don't
treat people like objects that are replaceable and in and that
lack value. At the end of the day, when you
terminate someone the way you terminate them can matter a lot
and how they receive your message and how they go out into
the world. Obviously, when people get
terminated they're going to come up with their own stories that
doesn't matter that's fine but they're going to have a much
better response reaction and possibly a better Outlook.
If you treat them like human beings with dignity and respect,
I don't know. I feel like everything That
happens with people or that's people.
Facing should be thought about in the context of how would I
want it to happen to me? How would I want to be spoken
to? How would I want to be treated?
And again, like, if you are numb to the process, if you are like
totally immune to the emotional elements of someone losing their
job, and then thinking about how they're going to pay their
bills, you might need to think about your career.
And if you're in the right career, especially if you're an
HR, especially underline, bold italicize.
It's not to say that I lose sleep.
Always over someone that I'm terminating.
Sometimes I do, I'll be really Frank.
I have lost sleep in anticipation of a termination
and after termination, and it's just because they're not easy,
termination suck, even when they're earned.
But it doesn't mean that I'm devoid of the understanding of
the impact. Everyone needs to understand the
whys, Going to send you out with one last hot take and that is
that you're going to have to terminate people.
If you're a manager, you're going to terminate probably a
lot of people throughout your career just don't lose your
compassion and consideration as you go through those experiences
because the better you can hold on to your compassion and
consideration. The better the manager you're
going to be and the better the manager you're going to become
because it's going to make you approachable.
It's going to keep You humble? And it's going to remind you
that you potentially could be in their situation and you would
want the same consideration as always.
Thank you so much for joining me for another week of the podcast.
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at HR. Tracy, you can get linked to all
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