(See Chapter 7 for how to fire for gross misconduct.) It has come down to the unhappy moment when there is no other choice-you should lay off an employee. It reflects badly on you and the business if the notice fails to communicate professionally. Also, you might find your problem employee is a better fit for another job within your small company. But frequently, workforce leave because you're overworking them, they have rigid schedules, they have difficulty in getting along with other workforce, or they have personal duties. In this case, you should treat this as a high-risk termination to cut your costs (more about this in Chapter 4).

Although much of this book has described how to lay off a single worker, this chapter discusses mass lay offs of workers. (I've included a cover note template in the jobholder Lay off Toolkit at the end of this book. Again use escalating discipline to create satisfactory documentation and prove you gave the sick and disabled worker chances to improve performance. If you fired the jobholder in the morning, this meeting usually will occur in the early afternoon. A sample layoff notice for a bad disposition worker must include all the guideline items in a general sample notice. Give the date by which the employee must sign the separation document and tell the employee you encourage him to have a legal counsellor review it. Be unemotional about the dismissal in front of the jobholder's coworkers. Failure to attend work without calling in is for the most part cause for immediate layoff in most positions. First, when you're dismissing for gross misconduct, you must separate the day after the 3-day suspension whether this is Friday or not. Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) also applies to sick and disabled workers.