firing

How to fire someone, being let go, preparing to lose your job — all your questions about workplace firings are answered here.

how to ask to resign instead of being fired

A reader writes: I’ve been put on a performance improvement plan after about eight months at my job. My manager says that she doesn’t think I have the skills to perform the job to her standards. After three months on the plan, my manager said she hasn’t seen the improvement she’s been looking for and […]

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I’m about to fire an employee — and we just hired her husband

A reader writes: One of my staff is about to be fired for grossly inadequate performance. I’m confident that we’re on safe legal ground with the firing, and her performance issues have been documented and addressed with no improvement. However, the complication is that we have just hired her husband to work within the same […]

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how do I tell my boss to fire our new hire?

A reader writes: I have a coworker who was hired about a month and a half ago. She works very closely with me and I’m unofficially her supervisor – I have done almost 100% of her training, I’m responsible for reviewing her work, and it is expected that she comes to me with questions before […]

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can I ask if a coworker will be fired?

A reader writes: My coworker, Sue, is painful to deal with. The feeling is shared by generally everyone in our office. In addition to personality issues, she is often tardy to meetings/work, misses deadlines, is unhygienic, etc. Sue has told us that her reviews have been much less than stellar. While I enjoy the work […]

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how can I stop panicking every day that I might get fired?

A reader writes: I was fired by my first job out of college and only salaried job. I knew I wasn’t doing my best work, was a general 20something mess, and was becoming very disillusioned and unhappy at the company. I don’t know how much was legitimately shady stuff they did or how much was […]

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my boss told me to quit or be fired

A reader writes: For the last six months, I’ve essentially been on “probation” with my supervisor, determining if this manager role is a good fit for me. His conclusion is that I do not possess the skills necessary for this role. Instead of terminating my employment, they offered me another position – a demotion to […]

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why won’t my company fire my terrible coworker?

A reader writes: I have a permanent position at a government office and there’s a temp who’s consistently doing sub-par work, and with a terrible attitude to boot. It’s extreme — filing documents and cases as completed without doing them at all to boost her performance numbers, losing checks, leaving difficult work undone or hiding […]

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a fired employee still wants to attend the office holiday party

A reader writes: Our office recently let an employee go for numerous reasons after several warnings. It for was for minor things such as frequent lateness, too many personal calls and emails on company time, and general friction with other coworkers, to more serious things such as a very sharp decline in his work quality, […]

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my employee can’t accept that his performance is bad

A reader writes: I’ve put a staff member on to a formal performance improvement plan, but despite me providing feedback and taking multiple approaches to get through to him, he doesn’t seem to be able to grasp just how poorly he is doing. I do want him to succeed and have supported many conversations, participation […]

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