5 min
Deputy General Director of HR Department BDO Unicon Outsourcing
In the majority of cases companies and dismissed workers manage to break up amicably. But if a situation clearly turns into a conflict, it is better to be prepared for the dismissal procedure in advance.
CONSIDER OTHER OPTIONS
If a good specialist turned out to be both a toxic person and an informal leader, he or she can undermine the employer’s authority (for example, telling employees that the management does not value them, makes disputable decisions and pays little).
But instead of firing such an employee, you can try to limit his or her area of influence and the ability to communicate with colleagues on non-work issues, for example, by making him or her work remotely. Thus, you may retain a valuable employee in the company, but do not disturb the atmosphere in it and also avoid a lot of potential problems associated with the dismissal.
THINK ABOUT THE BACKGROUND
If you are sure that the dismissal and further conflict are inevitable, make sure that they do not develop into a disaster for your company: a dismissed employee may, for example, file complaints about violations at the previous workplace with the court, labour inspection and even the Investigative Committee.
An employment contract with each employee and regularly paid white wages will not be enough to protect the company from claims. You should regularly organise occupational safety trainings to managers and specialists and conduct a special assessment of working conditions, while your employees should sign special assessment cards for each workplace. If these requirements are not met, your company will face heavy fines at best and disqualification of the CEO at worst.
Therefore, you need to check whether you have signed an employment contract with the employee and a special assessment card for the workplace before the dismissal, and whether he or she had an opportunity to read the company’s regulations against signature. If these conditions are not met, you may need to give in to the worker’s demands to avoid inspections.
BE PREPARED FOR ANY CONSEQUENCES
Do not forget, even if you reach an agreement with the employee, nevertheless, after some time he or she may decide to file complaints about your company with some authority. Even if there are no violations, the preparation of documents, written explanations, visits to the state labour inspection will take a lot of time.
If you are confident in the correctness of your position and just not ready to give the dismissed employee more than you should, you may defend your rights. Usually, the inspector evaluates the situation correctly and takes a fair position. However, be prepared that during the inspection process, the labour inspection may still find minor violations not related to the complaint itself.
CONFIRM NON-COMPETENCE OF THE EMPLOYEE IN ADVANCE
Be prepared to provide a documented reason for the dismissal: at least a month in advance, collect correspondence and uploads of task managers with a detailed analysis of the work done.
Many companies lose money by fulfilling the unreasonable wishes of employees, just because they do not want to document all the moments of interaction: from setting a task with a description of the expected result and the term for its achievement to summing up the task results with the analysis of specific errors. At the same time, today the court accepts e-mails as evidence, which greatly simplifies the evidence collecting procedure.
But if the employee completed all tasks on time, and the employer was not satisfied with the quality of the results, the interaction with the employee, or even the amount of energy invested in the work, then it will be difficult to prove that the work quality did not meet the declared expectations. In this case, the employer might lose the money (up to the amount of several employee wages)
PREPARE A DISMISSAL SCENARIO
Before you announce to an employee that you intend to fire him or her, you must prepare for various conflict development scenarios: how will you behave if the employee starts threatening? What if his or her demands exceed your capabilities? What payments and compensations are you ready to make? You need to decide in which case you may agree to give in to the employee’s demands, and in which to spend several months on litigation and defend your position.
Besides, you should inform about the upcoming dismissal the accounting department, personnel and administrative departments,the system administrator, the help-desk, the security service.
As soon as you announced your decision to the employee, his or her account should be blocked, emails and files backed up, the salary calculated and paid, in addition, debt analysis should be made in respect of the funds the employee was responsible for. Upon completion of the negotiations, the help-desk and the administrative department shall accept the IT equipment, the pass and other material values. It is important that employees of these departments maintain confidentiality.
Sometimes employers are ready to keep a job for the employee until he or she finds a new one. This decision depends on your level of trust. But I recommend to part on the initiative of the employer at once: you cannot be sure how the employee will behave in a stressful situation.
THINK ABOUT THE EMPLOYER’S BRAND
Employees often leave anonymous feedback about the company they used to work for. Track negative feedback, but it’s up to you to decide whether or not to respond. Retailers usually have a large number of negative feedback from sellers, who left the company and did not understand how the work schedule is built or how the motivation system works. It is impossible to manage so much negativity.
But if you work, for example, in the field of audit and consulting, then you should take into account the feedback. This is a signal for self-improvement.
ACCEPT THE SITUATION IF NOTHING CAN BE DONE
The Labour Code defines special categories of employees, who have additional guarantees upon termination of an employment contract, for example, pregnant women, single mothers or the sole breadwinners in the family. If it is your principal position to remove such an employee from work, be prepared to part with the money. You can try to negotiate a transfer of the employee to telecommuting or even ‘idle work’ with the payment of two-thirds of the average wages without access to the workplace. You can also try to transfer the ineffective employee to another department, but you are unlikely to be able to cut his or her salary.
Sometimes the company’s management wants to get rid of the employee by any means. However, remember that there are cases when an HR specialist can really do nothing. The dismissal of a pregnant woman or a sole breadwinner of the family would be an infringement of the legislation. If after that an HR specialist also resigns, then the CEO will bear the liability and pay fines.
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