Wrongful Termination: Protect Yourself BEFORE There’s An Issue

Get Your Policies In Order

To develop effective, repeatable, documented termination procedures, you’ll need to start where so many workforce compliance initiatives start: your employee handbook. Make sure your employee handbook contains language that accurately reflects the terms of employment that apply to your workforce. For most employers, that means specifying at-will employment, which ensures that you don’t need to find “just cause” to terminate an employee or provide warnings first.

Get Your Procedures in Order

Your handbook talks the talk; your organizational procedures need to walk the walk.
Create and document processes related to:

• performance evaluation
• disciplinary action
• incident management
• termination
• post-termination procedures

To ensure that these processes happen in a consistent manner (i.e. no employee receives unfair or special treatment), you will need to automate them. New to automation? Learn how Compligo, our automated workforce compliance platform, can host all your policies in one place and document discipline and termination processes as they occur.

Educate Your Managers

Policies and procedures are vital, but they don’t mean much if they’re not followed properly. Make sure managers at your organization know what kind of conduct you expect of them. In addition to everyday employee management skills, those in charge should know how to react in difficult situations, e.g. when intervening in a dispute between co-workers or disciplining a hostile employee. It probably goes without saying, but managers should also be aware of federal and state employment laws and regulations.

Educate Your Employees

Termination should rarely, if ever, come as a surprise. Make sure all members of your workforce understand the rules of your workplace, including what kinds of behaviors result in discipline or termination. Once again, your employee handbook is the ideal vehicle to communicate this information.