Michael Moore, Esq. Director McKenzie HR Solutions Printer Friendly Version

Separating Yourself From A Bad Employee, Part III

We opened this series of articles by explaining how you can reduce the potential for a confrontational and even dangerous termination. The risk reduction starts with you having a solid employment relations policy that every employee receives and understands when they sign on. We also gave one of many possible examples of how a poorly planned termination can result in the employer being hit for false imprisonment, assault, battery and a host of other potential claims. The second in the series began to provide strategies for controlling not only the situation, but your own anxieties over these types of terminations. We continue on here.

Why not record the termination meeting?
In my experience, employees sometimes ask to record the meeting if they suspect it will be a termination session. For reasons I never understood, human resources managers always refuse to allow the recording. This is a real mistake. Think how it will play out in front of a judge and jury that the plaintiff – the fired employee – asked to record the session and was denied, and then the employer tries to contest something that the employee claims happened in that session. The credibility of the employer’s explanation goes to zero.

The best evidence of what occurred in the session is, of course, an audio - or, better yet, video - record. You should strongly consider not waiting for a request from the employee, but decide to document it yourself. You should at least record the session on tape - a microcassette recorder costs only a few bucks. These are the necessary steps:

1.  Test the recorder in the office to make sure it picks up the voices clearly from where the participants will be sitting.
2.  Ask the employee at the beginning if he or she objects to you recording the session. If the answer is “yes,” simply turn on the recorder at that point, state your name, the date, the location, the name of the employee, that the employee is present and that there has been an objection to recording the meeting, then ask for the employee to confirm and turn off the recorder.
3.  Assuming no objection, hit record and identify yourself, everyone present, the date and location, get the employee to affirm that he/she knows the meeting is being recorded and agrees to it, and be sure to state on the record that you will provide a copy of the recording to the employee.
4.  When the meeting concludes, confirm on the record that it is over, reaffirm you will supply a copy to the employee, state the time, then turn the recorder off.

Conducting the meeting
Because this is a separation event, hand the employee the termination documents at the beginning. Be straightforward that you have decided to terminate the employee. Offer them the opportunity to read the termination letter in your presence. Do not elaborate on the issues in the letter – you have already done that in writing and in previous discussions. Answer any questions about the issues in the letter by referring back to your policies and the letter. Properly done, the termination letter should say what you need to say.

Next article, we’ll discuss employee threats, entreaties, and finalizing the termination.

Mike Moore is ranked among the best in employment law and has been named one of the top 10 lawyers in Ohio. As Director of McKenzie's HR Solutions, Mike is the creator of the Employment Policy and Handbook, geared to providing dentists who are unsophisticated in the legal arena with a step-by-step policy manual.

Click here to hear Mike present “7 Elements of an Effective Employment Policy.” Email Mike at mike@thedentistsnetwork.net.

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