Best Practices for Preventing Wrongful Termination Claims

While most managers may find it uncomfortable, every employer must face the likelihood that someone, at some point, will have to be let go. Indeed, termination can be vital to an organization’s culture. But you need to do it right to make sure you’re protecting both your people and your bottom line.

Three Keys to Approaching with Termination in your Workforce

Take a systematic approach

Don’t leave it up to a single person to address issues of discipline and termination alone. Use a system to track disciplinary procedures and terminations across your organization’s departments and locations. The system should be overseen by your leadership team and adhere to your organizational policy.

Build a repeatable process

While each workplace incident prompting the discipline or termination of an employee is unique, your organization’s approach to discipline and termination should follow the same basic pattern and structure. Consistency shows courts and regulators that you give workers equal treatment regardless of each employee’s identifying characteristics or the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Document everything

We have a saying here at Compli: if it wasn’t documented, it didn’t happen. Make sure to assiduously record every interaction and decision related to an employee’s discipline or termination in as timely a manner as possible. The goal is to be able to produce a report—that is, proof of what happened—to any inquiring party, now or in the distant future.

Ready to Get Started?

While Compli may not be able to make the difficult conversation any easier, we help employers avoid long-term challenges and legal liability in the aftermath of a termination.

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Termination Initiative Resources

Here are our most recent tools to help you stay up-to-date on termination initiative best practices.

Picked for You from the Resource Library

Workforce Program Grader

How can you tell if it’s time to add automation to your workforce programs? Take this quiz to find out. [More]
Termination Program Solution Brief

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Employee Termination Infographic

Your quick guide to building a solid termination program. Wrongful termination claims are expensive, eat up time, and hurt your culture. Here’s the short list of [More]
Termination Best Practices eBook

Protect your culture and bottom line. “You’re fired.” Perhaps the most difficult words to utter as an employer. Conducted poorly, discipline and terminations can have heavy [More]
Webinar: Termination Best Practices

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Terminations Best Practices Cheat Sheet

While we hope you never have to rely on this cheat sheet, the reality is that terminations need to happen from time to time. Get this [More]

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