With progressive discipline, you destroy the disgruntled employee's legal case. When sacking for a business reason and competitive pressure, you must thoroughly document the economic trends and strategic changes which drive your layoff. To make this "official", you and the employee need to agree on what days are FMLA leave versus vacation days and sick days. The prevalence of legal action in our society means that many poor-performing workforce will begin legal action claiming you have unfairly dismissed them. Second, professional conduct reduces the possibility of legal ramifications that may come out of separating workers. o How to do employee firings and lay offs appropriately like an experienced dismissal professional. o Have you, or will you, treat this termination and employee differently than others similarly placed? The moral of this story is only document when you are firing (and disciplining) for a legitimate and legal reason. Or for a written notification, it may be missing a deadline set by the verbal notice. The jobholder works harder at making your life miserable than on his job. While you'll normally give a rank-in-file employee only 30 days to upgrade between warnings, an executive should have at least 90 days.

The answer is "yes," but be ready to give a healthy severance. Remember if this goes to court as an unfair separation case, some people may interpret strong language as evidence of a personal vendetta, or a simple personality clash between you. Therefore, you should make the dismissal notification employee friendly. Now that you're adequately prepared for the termination meeting, the next step when dimissing employees is to schedule the meeting.