How to Part with an Employee with Tyson Mutrux

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

In this podcast episode, Tyson tackles the sensitive topic of employee termination. His tips include: acting promptly, communicating directly and respectfully, and having a termination plan, particularly for remote workers. 

Some of the points Tyson dive deeper in this episode is to avoid prolonging discussions during the termination meeting, being objective, and not disparaging the employee post-termination. You could also offer support for the employee's transition and being transparent with the team are also highlighted. 

It’s the leader's responsibility to make tough decisions for the firm's health which includes the tasks of parting with employees. But hopefully, these shared tips will make things a little easier. Listen in!

Episode Highlights:

• 01:31 Making the decision to part with an employee
• 03:41 The preferred method of being direct and respectful when parting with an employee
• 06:38 The importance of being open with the team about a termination
• 07:33 Considering offering help to the terminated employee
• 10:05 The necessity of seeking legal counsel and support

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Transcripts: How to Part with an Employee

Tyson (00:01.422)
Hey everyone, Tyson here with another Saturday episode and today I'm gonna talk about a tough one, but it's one that we're all gonna have to face at some point if we have a practice that we plan on growing. Part of growth is change, okay? And sometimes that means that you have to part with employees. So we're gonna talk about that today. I'm gonna give my advice on…

what to do if you've got to let an employee go. Before I do, I do want to remind everybody that if you want to get stage one of maximum lawyer and minimum time, just text stage one to 314 -501 -9260. 314 -501 -9260. Even if you don't want stage one, if you just want to say hi, I'd love to hear from you or if you have any…

tips or any type of topic you want me to cover on the show, I'm happy to discuss it. But, all right, so I guess it wasn't this week, it was last week. We had to actually act pretty quickly and terminate an employee. And it is probably the least favorite thing that I do as an employer, as an owner. It's awful. But I want to talk about today just because it's kind of raw.

And I want to give you my perspective. You're going to want to make sure you speak to an employment lawyer before you take any actions. You want to make sure you've covered all your bases. Even states that you're an at -will state, make sure you take precautions and make sure you get the proper insurance. I would recommend that as well. So let me give you my perspective. Let me give you a few tips on…

What to do if you've got to fire an employee. And the first one is one you're gonna hear from just about everybody. And it's interesting because you do get some rumblings of, you know, give people the chance to kind of redeem themselves. You hear that sort of talk, everyone smiling. And I think that that's bad advice. And I don't know who said it, but I've heard the advice that the first time you think about the f -

Tyson (02:32.014)
about firing an employee is probably when you should do it. And I'm not all the way on that side of things, but I will say that when you've made the decision, do it right away. This is something where we made the decision on a Wednesday, and I wanted to do it on a Wednesday because of some timing issues with the leadership team.

We had to do it the next morning, but we did it first thing the next morning. And by first thing, I mean the moment.

that we could, we did. So it was bright and early, first thing, we did it. And so that's something where, I just, out of respect, what's the point of, there's a few reasons for that, really. Out of respect for the employee, that's a major part of this, is what's the point of having them hang around when you know that you're gonna get rid of them? I mean, that's…

It's not fair to them, it's not fair to you, it's not fair to the rest of the team. That's the other part of this too is how is that fair to the rest of your team where you've got someone that they're relying on that is not gonna be there, okay? And is not gonna be there in the coming hours or days or weeks. They need to be able to move on, your team needs to be able to move on and know that that employee's not gonna be there, so.

And I am sure there's exceptions to everything I'm gonna tell you. And that's fine, not everything that I'm gonna tell you is gonna be, you know, none of these are absolutes. But the next thing is, is when you actually make the decision, my preferred method is, get straight to the point, okay? If you've ever seen Moneyball, Moneyball is a really good, it's a really good way of doing it. I'll be honest with you. I've done it multiple ways and, um.

Tyson (04:34.606)
My way is pretty quick. Essentially, whenever it happens, when we call them in, I say, such and such, just to let you know, this is gonna be your last day here. And I thank them for the work that they've done. I'm not accusatory at all, that's another one of my tips. There's no point in being accusatory, there's no point in getting into explanations. If you're gonna offer a severance,

have all that drawn up, give it to them, say we want you to review this and take it with you, let us know what you want to do with it. You have a right to consult with a lawyer, whatever your state is. Obviously you're gonna want to make sure you follow that advice too, but there is no point in having some long drawn out discussion when you do this. There's just not. If a discussion needs to be had later about something like the severance, you can do that later.

but they're not gonna make any wise decisions in the heat of this moment and neither are you. Their emotions are gonna be high, your emotions might be high, hopefully not. Hopefully by the time you've gotten to this point where you've been able to think this through and you're not emotional about it. And I don't wanna say you need to be disengaged, but you kinda do, where you go into it and…

You gotta be very objective. Go into it, you've made the decision, let them know about it, and move on from there. So those are a couple of my tips whenever you're actually doing it. Afterwards, I do think it's important that you're open with the team about it, you address it with the team.

Letting it just kind of linger is a bad idea because people start to draw their own conclusions and you don't want them to be able to do that. So you go in, don't talk bad about an employee that you just let go. Just let them know they're no longer with the firm. If you need to give a brief explanation, do that. Do it without talking badly about the employee and move on from there. Something I did, I did leave out and I want to make sure I do.

Tyson (06:59.502)
bring this up. And I do think that this helps quite a bit. When you do it, I think it's important to say to the employee that you're letting go, hey, we're happy to help you transition into your new role at another company. We're happy to help you in any way we can. Now, that's gonna depend on the situation. If it's something where it was very contentious, you're probably not gonna wanna do that. But if it's a situation where it's not super contentious, maybe you terminated them for…

Maybe it's job performance. You're not really mad at the employee. They're just not great at their job. That's a situation where, okay, maybe you're willing to let them know, hey, we're happy to help you transition into your new role at another company as best we can. Now, if it's something where they're stealing from your firm or something like that, you're obviously not gonna do that. So this is one of those where it's not an absolute. It's just something to consider.

that maybe can help you in this situation, because this is not gonna be easy. I don't, like I said, I don't like doing it. You just gotta do it, right? I'm gonna give some credit to Jay Ruane on this, because I think about, anytime I have to do this, I do think about something, some advice he gives. He says, look at a picture of your family. And…

you're doing this because that's the best thing for your family. It really is. Where I'm making a tough decision, but I'm making the tough decision because that's what's best for this firm. That's what's best for my family. And that's true. It really is. That's why you're doing it. You're doing it for all the right reasons. And you gotta remember that. And you gotta remember also, you're not alone in this. It's a tough thing, but…

We all have to do that from time to time and it's not fun, but it's a necessary thing that's gotta be done. And that's why you chosen to do this, to make the tough decisions, okay? You're there, that's why you're in that leadership position, that's why your employees look up to you. They expect you to make those tough decisions. And with this most recent employee, it was tough, but…

Tyson (09:19.918)
the team hasn't really skipped a beat. I think they kind of saw it coming. I'm not going to get into the details as to the reason why, but they kind of saw it coming, I think. And so I think that there's some relief there with the team because they knew it was coming. The employee ultimately probably knew it was coming. I think that that's generally true. You do hear that sometimes where people talk about how the employee usually knows. I've had that one time where they didn't see it coming and that's the painful ones. Those are the really painful ones that…

when you catch the employees by surprise, those are tough. Those usually become a little bit more drawn out than what you want them to be, because there's a little bit of explanation going on because they're asking a bunch of questions. And then I think the last tip that I'll give you, and again, I'm gonna remind you, you're gonna wanna make sure you've got some sort of plan put in place that is the same plan, okay? You need to have a termination plan.

but you also need to run this by your own legal counsel in your state, okay? So just keep that in mind. This is something where I've consulted, luckily I've got a really good friend that is an employment lawyer that I've been able to run the things that we do by, but you need to do the same, someone in your state. And this is, you need to have someone with you, okay? You don't do this by yourself. I one time have had to…

do that by myself and it was not fun. It was not something I would advise. It was just a timing thing where it needed to be done and I did it by myself. It ended up being fine, but you just for multiple reasons, you want to make sure you've got someone else there that's with you that is, I mean, partially for support, but also just as a witness, right? You want them to.

that you want there to be a witness there as well. I guess, you know, there's one last thing I almost forgot to bring up and that is if you have remote employees, you need to have a termination plan that accounts for that. And I've heard of some firms where they let the employee keep the equipment. Okay, I've had it where we don't. I think that if we had an employee that has worked.

Tyson (11:42.222)
for us for several years. We'd probably let them keep the equipment. It just depends on the equipment and how long they worked for us. But if it's a situation where, like we usually buy all of our equipment through Best Buy. And so something we've done is we just let them return it to Best Buy and then Best Buy refunds our money. That's something that's happened before. Or we also have a setup where it's all

It's all kind of set up part of our system where they can box it up, take it to a UPS store I think or a FedEx. I can't remember which one we use, but take it and they ships it back to us. Pretty easy. But have some sort of process in place. You've got remote employees because those can be trickier, right? The equipment's not in your office. It is somewhere else and you've got to get it back if you want to get it back. So…

That is that that one that one can be a tricky one. So you want to make sure that you you've got that locked down All right. I think I've given enough to this episode If you do have anything you want me to cover just remember text me 314 -501 -9260 Happy to do that Until next week. Remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care, buddy