Scenario – Carol Schwartz: What Would You Do?
Carol Schwartz is the Administrative Manager for the regional offices of a national real estate development company. Carol’s responsibility is to manage all administrative functions for six offices across a large geographical territory. Among the employees who report to Carol are data entry clerks, accounting clerks, secretaries, receptionists and a few network technology support staff.
Carol’s difficult decision, made last week, was that she needs to terminate Miriam, a receptionist in the Northwest office, for her poor performance. At least four agents have written emails to Carol about Miriam’s performance over the past year. She is chronically late in the mornings; her absences are far above the norm for all other administrative employees; and, lately, she has been rude and insolent to the agents. They fear, but have no basis in fact, that she is equally rude to customers and suppliers.
Carol has talked to Miriam on several occasions and has kept a file indicating each time she spoke to Miriam and what Miriam promised to do. However, Miriam’s behavior never got better; it only got worse.
You are Carol. What do you do and how do you do it?
Workshop DescriptionEnding someone’s employment with your company for cause is never easy. However, it can and should be done both ethically and legally. There are ways to make this difficult situation bearable both for the employee and the supervisor/manager.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
This 2-hour Lunch ‘n Learn Workshop will teach you:
- the importance of gathering performance data to support your decision to terminate the employee
- what to document and how to do it
- how to conduct the termination interview
