July 2, 2007
California At-Will Employment - If the worker is being separated for reasons
If the worker is being separated for reasons other than internal business matters, be sure to outline exactly what behavior precipitated the lay off. If you choose to mail the letter to the worker, then be certain you use certified mail. If the worker is harassing other employees, for example, a court can find you guilty of failing to discipline the employee for his or her actions. First, write a note to the disgruntled individual's workforce file or to Personnel. (By the way, when the defamation is in writing, you call it libel. This is where a worker firing form comes in handy. However, if the jobholder normally does a decent job, and the insubordinate attitude is a recent affair, then the personnel workers may decide to help the employee. Although, you haven't found any wrongdoing or the proof is inconclusive, you and the worker still have a problem . By writing history, the fired worker can argue you never gave him a fair chance to increase.
Armed with your evidence and your employee dismissal later, you must then sit down with the jobholder and outline the rationale for the dismissal. If the jobholder continues to inform lies, you can separate him after the final written notification. Even a chronically late bad worker can cause safety problems as other workforce try to pick up the slack or to speed up and catch up on production when the worker finally makes it in. In this case, a legal action in the small company's future is likely. Be sure they know whom their new account representative will be. But instead of sacking them outright, you should give them a second change. If you're a small business owner, separating a high level employee may also be emotionally challenging because you have likely formed a close relationship with that individual.
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