Hi, my name is Candice Elliott, and I am a human resources strategist. Today I'm going to be talking with you about conducting a termination and the ways that you can reduce risk in doing a termination. There's a previous video that talks about coming to the decision to do a termination. Now that you've made the decision that you want to move forward with terminating your employee, there are a few steps to take. The first thing is to decide on the day that you will terminate the employee.
You can choose a day that is sooner or later. Generally, I recommend that if you have made the decision to terminate the employment with someone, that you let them go as soon as you possibly can. Now, there are some time constraints to think about, to prepare for the termination and so it might take you a day or two to get everything together. I wouldn't wait longer than that once you've actually decided to terminate unless some kind of unusual situation happens.
An unusual situation, meaning, the person who you were going to terminate injured themselves at work, or some other sort of red flag situation happens with them that means that you need to postpone the termination or reconsider that termination altogether. In an example, you've decided two days from now, you're going to terminate the person. I recommend that you invite the employee to a meeting or set up [00:02:00] a time to have a meeting with them that you have another manager present with you when you perform the termination.
That way you have two people's recollections of what transpired during the meeting if there's any disagreement about what happened in the future. Then to prepare for that meeting, you need to give the person their final paycheck at their termination. You cannot wait until a day later or a week later, or process their paycheck like normal. You have to give them their paycheck on their last day. Include on that paycheck, all of the things that you would include for an employee who has resigned from their position.
You need to pay them all the wages that they're owed including wages for the last day of work with you. Don't forget to add those in. That sometimes happens, so don't forget those. Any paid time off that they have accrued or any vacation hours that they have accrued that they are owed. In California, our sick leave laws do not require you to pay out sick leave at the end of employment, so you do not need to include that.
You will need to notice them about any medical, dental, or vision insurance that you have and any COBRA coverage that's continued coverage after employment, and their last date of coverage with you if you have those benefits for your employees. Typically medical, dental, and vision insurance will end on the last day of the month after a termination.
Someone's let go on December-- Oh, December is a bad month to choose. If someone's [00:04:00] let go on January 15th, then January 30th would be the last day of their benefits. Let's see. Another notice that they need to receive is the employment development department notice around unemployment insurance because they may qualify for unemployment.
If you are letting go of someone with cause for things that they have done at work, and you have recorded those, and you have provided them with either corrective action or disciplinary forms, then you can submit those to EDD to try to combat an unemployment insurance claim that is fraudulent. It's difficult to do, but it is possible to do.
If the employee is just being let go because it just isn't the right fit, but there's no supporting documentation for why then the employee most likely will qualify for unemployment insurance. That will count against your company's unemployment insurance tax rate. Generally, people have around a 3% or a 3.5% tax rate, and that rate will go up the more claims that you have. Just consider that if you're deciding to let someone go. Those are all of the things that they need to be paid for and noticed around.
When you go to the last day, to this final meeting, where you're going to terminate them, you want to bring a final paycheck receipt. I'll have a template of one of those in the resources for this session. That'll include the different [00:06:00] categories of funds that have been paid out to them, so their regular pay, any vacation pay, et cetera. You need to bring their final paycheck. If you want to have that paycheck split out between the different payments, you can do that. Talk with your accountant about what works best for your company's accounting.
Generally in the conversation, I keep it pretty simple. Excuse me, I just let them know that unfortunately despite their best efforts and our best efforts, it just hasn't worked out, and that we don't have a position for them anymore, and that this is their final paycheck. I ask them to review it and make sure that they're paid for everything that they believe that they're owed, and then have them sign the final paycheck receipt and give them a copy.
If there are any questions or concerns about the monies that are owed to the employee pay, I recommend as long as it's not some kind of exorbitant amount to pay them what they believe they are owed, even if it's a little bit different from what you have. If someone is saying that you owe them a thousand dollars and you don't believe that you do, that is one thing, but if someone is saying that you owe them $100 and you disagreed, I generally recommend paying out that those funds that the employee believes that they are owed in order to avoid a claim with the labor department.
The reason that you're supplying the employee with all of their wages on their last day of employment is because, obviously, you're required to by law. If the employee doesn't [00:08:00] receive their wages, then they go to the Labor Board and they make a report to the Labor Board around missed wages. Then you're liable for missed wages plus penalties.
It's pretty difficult to defend those cases, and oftentimes, employers end up just paying them out because of the time and effort that it takes to really fight them. I had an instance where an employer had not paid someone $10, but it ended up being a $5,000 claim which was paid out because of all of the time and energy, it would have taken to fight it off. That's my reasoning behind if there is an amount of money that is smaller and that is believed to be owed that you might consider moving forward with paying it rather than denying it at the end of employment.
Especially in terminations, emotions can run really high. They can run high for you, they can run high for the employee. I've had so many different kinds of reactions happen in terminations. I had someone faint. I had someone get really angry. I've had people cry, people just be really silent and leave. Just be prepared that a lot of different kinds of reactions could happen. I recommend my employees not enter into any kind of debate during a termination but just continue to return to that it just wasn't the right fit and that unfortunately, the position is no longer open for them.
I would be remiss if I didn't also in this video talk about other conditions surrounding the person's employment that you should consider before moving forward with the termination. I did touch on this a little bit earlier, but [00:10:00]
if a person has experienced harassment at your company or believes that they have, if they have experienced discrimination or believe that they have, if they feel that they've been treated unfairly and have expressed that to you prior to a termination, and if they have a medical situation that's going on, that's related to work or any of these kinds of red flag things, it warrants further consideration and either reaching out to your legal counsel for further information on how to move forward and what the best steps are or reconsidering, and either postponing or just not moving forward and finding another way to incorporate the person into the business.
Please don't take that as anything other than really recommending that if anything is going on, that is abnormal about the employment relationship, other than the reason why you want to terminate the person to please reach out to your legal counsel because that's an important step to take. All right, thank you for joining me and for talking with me about terminations. I hope this gives you a few steps to take to help you have a more protective termination for your company.
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