How To Terminate An Employee The Right Way The Hartford

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Oct 30, 2025, 9:41 PM

how to terminate an employee the right way the hartford

Sign Up For Our HR for Humans Newsletter! Sign up to receive more well-researched human resources articles and topics in your inbox, personalized for you. Sign up to receive more well-researched human resources articles and topics in your inbox, personalized for you. Legal employee termination requires careful documentation and process to protect both the business and the employee. Following proper procedures helps minimize legal risks while ensuring a professional separation. A well-executed termination process maintains workplace morale and reduces potential disputes.

Here are the key steps: The four important steps to terminating an employee include documenting the reason, gathering the needed paperwork, notifying the employee, and providing the final paycheck. Home U.S. Labor Laws How to Terminate an Employee Master employee termination with this step-by-step guide for compliance and business safety. Ensure fair, respectful, and legally sound terminations.

In September 2024, 5.2 million employees separated from their jobs in the U.S., with 1.8 million of these due to layoffs or discharges. This high rate of turnover underlines the importance of handling employee terminations carefully and in compliance with U.S. labor law to protect your business. Terminating an employee is one of the toughest tasks a manager can face. Beyond the emotional and interpersonal challenges, there are complex legal requirements to follow. In the U.S., both federal and state laws regulate the termination process, requiring businesses to adhere to guidelines under U.S.

labor law to avoid wrongful termination claims. Firing is one of the most difficult things leaders must do. How to terminate an employee involves being humane and empathetic. Here are 5 steps to follow. The right way to properly fire someone begins well in advance of the actual termination. Knowing how to terminate an employee requires being humane and empathetic.

According to the ADP Research Institute® report, Strategic Drift: How HR Plans for Change, 76 percent of executives say they intend to do more to find internal opportunities to develop employees and prevent departures. The converse of this is for leaders to identify, coach and, occasionally, release those employees who aren't performing or developing to allow opportunities for those who can. Harvard Business Review notes how firing an employee is one of the most difficult things a leader must do. A leader must remember what's important for the organization and must focus on how the firing makes good business sense and helps the team going forward. However, before the actual firing occurs, several other steps must occur first in order to ensure the termination is aligned with the organization's goals and therefore, good for the firm. In other words, firing is "the final step in a fair and transparent process," as outlined below.

Except in relatively rare cases where an employee endangers someone by completely ignoring safety rules or commits a breach such as breaking confidentiality, most poor behavior is noticed and documented well before a firing. As such, it's pertinent that a manager notice the unwanted behavior(s) as early as possible and document them. This begins the HR compliance trail that can be used to deny an unemployment claim and to help prevent unlawful termination suits. Employees need to be coached and counseled at the first signs of performance problems. Some employees may need additional training or resources to fully perform their job. If so, this must be identified and made available as early as possible.

Nobody comes to a job with the same set of skills and abilities. Training and coaching can provide those individuals who are motivated and who have the acumen with the assistance they need to improve their behavior. Coaching involves formal, face-to-face conversations that have the goal of eliminating undesired behaviors and reinforcing desired behaviors. Alison Roller is passionate about engaging and informative storytelling through writing and social media. She has been writing since 2018 on a range of topics: politics, higher education, leadership, workplace culture, and diversity, equity, & inclusion. She holds a Master's of Communication with a focus on journalism from Syracuse University's Newhouse School.

When she’s not working, you can find her hanging out with her cat, knitting, and scrolling TikTok. Making the decision to terminate an individual’s employment is never easy. Having a checklist to keep track of all the steps in the termination process can help you stay organized and ensure that nothing is missed in the process. And it can also help free up time for HR to focus on the next steps for the business and the employee. Here’s a step-by-step employee termination checklist to ensure that the termination process goes as smoothly as possible. Before doing anything else, the first step should be ensuring that you comply with company policies as well as federal and state laws.

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How To Terminate An Employee The Right Way The Hartford

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