Disciplining & Terminating Remote Employees
Disciplining and terminating employees is the worst part of working in human resources. But it may be the most important. How you discipline and terminate is often more important than the discipline or termination itself. You should not stoop to their level even if an employee has done something egregious. Discipline should be done with dignity. Nothing will make an employee more motivated to sue than a disrespectful termination.
When you have to discipline an employee, you’ll want to get insight from managers on what they think the right move is. But even if you take their opinion seriously, you need checks and balances. Your company might not intend to discriminate. But your company will be on the hook if it blindly adopts the termination decision based on a manager’s discriminatory motive. This is true for pay, promotion, and discipline decisions, too.
Usually, it makes a lot of sense to have one person in human resources who oversees the discipline process and approves any final discipline. This employee should not be a rubber stamper. Instead, this should be someone tasked with looking at the situation holistically and equitably to ensure that the employee receives even-handed discipline based on company precedent and other conduct documented in their personnel file.
This person should also reference the company’s written discipline policy to ensure procedures and protocols are followed.
Some employers have strict “Zero Tolerance Policies” where employees are terminated for severe misconduct like proven sexual harassment, assault, or embezzlement. This can make a lot of sense.
But most of the time, you should write your discipline policy with the reality that only some issues will be clear-cut. As a result, your policy should list a non-exhaustive list of examples of misconduct that may result in discipline.
In most situations, you never want to tie your hands. There are too many variables. Employees and concerns need to be looked at holistically and in context. If termination is necessary, terminate the employee respectfully, make sure you coordinate with your IT Team so that access to electronic resources can be immediately shut down to prevent exfiltration or malicious actions, and, if you can, offer the employee a separation agreement in exchange for a waiver and release of any claims.
