Please don't use use 'downsizing' as an excuse for dismissing bad employees, or creating a culture change in the organization by replacing old workers with new ones. What does a good sample employment termination memorandum look like? o Looking at pornography on business time. While not pleasant, keep in mind that separating workforce for misconduct is necessary if you wish to build a strong and viable company.

Often, they are employees who are insubordinate or who have a bad disposition, and they do major damage to your workplace environment and performance. This helps protect you against the employees claiming unfair separation. Question: How do you handle yourself when you're just the messenger and the terminated employee wants your opinion of the circumstances? You should have already carefully put thought into this before the lay off and there should be no reason to change your mind. o The jobholder has received regular promotions. You find out that, yes, she did call Sherry to postpone the meeting for 15 minutes because she had to get out a project for her supervisor. Now you have dramatically cut your risk of lawsuit. Often this is all the motivation an employee wants to upgrade. o Decision: You can either informally counsel the jobholder or give him a warning. You should put him into escalating discipline, set reasonable job guidelines, and give him time to upgrade. There are always those within companies that simply are not a good fit and would be more effective, productive personnel elsewhere.