123: Firing Someone, Part 2

This is the second part of last weeks episode…on how to fire someone. Last week we talked about a few ways to get it wrong…and how to set it up so you wouldn’t have to fire someone…if you haven’t listened to that, I suggest you go back and take a listen. ….. But then a few of you reached out to ask about how to actually go about firing someone correctly…because they needed help with finding the right words and such. Thank you so much for reaching out! So, in this episode we will talk about all of that. Let’s just say, terminating someone is never easy…and it doesn’t get easier

Firing employees is one of the toughest things to do as the owner of a salon. We develop friendships with our team members…they become like family. However, you are a business owner and have to make business decisions. Just remember to keep feedback about behaviors…not every termination will end smoothly…in fact, most do not. But just keep your chin up. Do the right thing. The right people will find you and your salon…

If you’re a salon owner and need some guidance with one-on-ones, go over to https://www.salonownershipmadeeasy.com/oneonone for our FREE .pdf The "Must Have" Questions for a Successful One-on-One


0:00
How to fire an employee correctly.
1:47
Most employee terminations are stressful and emotionally draining on owners.
3:31
The most common mistake that owners make is to address the problem, but then they don’t provide any next steps.
5:17
What do you own in having to fire an employee?
7:24
Don’t second-guess yourself when it comes to firing.
9:47
Give a letter of recommendation.
12:17
What to do if an employee asks you why they’re being terminated.
14:30
Make it clear that the topic isn’t up for discussion.
16:45
Don’t talk about it in front of clients and employees.

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Transcript

1:28

Well, hey there. This is the second part of last week's episode on how to fire someone. Last week, we talked about a few ways to get it wrong, and how to set it up. So you wouldn't have to fire someone. If you haven't listened to that, I suggest you go back and take a listen. But then a few of you reached out to ask how to actually go about firing someone correctly. Because you needed help with finding the right words and such right now. Thanks so much for reaching out. So in this episode, we're going to talk about all of that. Let's just say terminating someone is never easy, and it doesn't get easier. Well, hey there. This is Denise. And this is the salon ownership Made Easy show a podcast for salon owners who are searching for simple solutions to their everyday challenges. Think about it. We didn't learn how to be successful salon owners in beauty school. So why don't you let me share what has worked and hasn't worked for me over the last 30 years. You do have what it takes to be amazingly successful. You just need to master a few key techniques, develop some solid systems and create a leadership mindset to be on your way. So let's do this. I'm so excited. You're here. Welcome back to the podcast. Okay, she seemed great during the interview. But it's becoming clear that this one person is beyond any help you can give her maybe she's too slow, too inexperienced or too unreliable. Perhaps she's toxic and causing problems with other employees. Maybe she's received one client complaint too many this month. Whatever the reason, some employees just don't work out. Even after years in business having to tell an employee I have to let you go rarely gets any easier. Without question. Most employee terminations are stressful and emotionally draining on owners. When you're taking an individual's job and livelihood away, terminations should never be taken lightly. firing an employee can also be upsetting to the salons culture, especially if the one being fired has tight friendships with other staff members. So let's just first recognize the signs is really easy to see when an employee is trying to learn and to get better. You know, and they're easy to identify as a team player that's coachable. That is, you know, they're trying. But it's not so easy. When an employee's just going through the motions to appear productive. It's not so easy to recognize that what an employee is telling you, it doesn't always reflect reality does it? So listen to that little voice in your head, because their behavior will never get better on its own. The longer an employee's subpar behavior or their performance goes unaddressed, the more you enable it. I've done this so many times, because you just don't want to go there. Those are hard conversations. But the longer you do that the harder is to fix. There's a difference between micromanaging and coaching people. Remember this leadership's about achieving business results by coaching people to achieve their full potential. If you ignore the importance of developing your people, you're not going to like being a leader. So for more information on coaching one on one, you can always download my FREE PDF, just go to our website, I'll make sure to put the link in the show notes. So once performance and behavior issues are identified, it's time to have that conversation that begins with Hey, Do I have your permission to speak frankly, the most common mistake that owners make is to address the problem, but then they don't provide any next steps. Kind of sounds like, hey, you need to get your retail number up, okay? And then the employee response, okay. And they keep doing what they've always done, because they don't know any better, you haven't taught them what to do. So here's what you do. Before you have the discussion, you prepare a little written plan for the next steps that will help the employee achieve the win. The goal with this as these these next steps is to avoid to have to fire the employee. Right. So then what do you do, then you schedule your check ins. So remember when we discussed the check ins during their very first two weeks in employment in the last episode, this is also important when you're trying to coach on behavior patterns, check ins need to be frequent, don't spread them out over weeks or months. Frequent sounds like Let's talk tomorrow or at the end of the day to see how you're doing with this. There's something about daily that communicates that making progress is not only an expectation, but it's a non negotiable. You'll know in a week or two if progress is happening. If not, you'll know it's time to part ways, right? Don't allow that employee to have excuses why they're not doing what you do. both agree that they would do remember, every paycheck, you give employees, you're buying their chosen performance and commitment to their job and career. If you're buying their excuses, rather than their performances. Get it, it's time to address what you're buying. Does that make sense? One of the toughest questions owners and leaders can ask himself is, what do I own in this situation? What do I own in having to fire this employee? And if you answer it, it's that you've done everything reasonably possible that you could to help this employee, that's great. But if your answer is that you didn't address the employee's issues fast enough, like I've done many, many, many times, or if you didn't meet your promises that you made, again, guilty, that's when you have an opportunity to learn and grow as a leader. It's okay. Remember, owners and leaders make mistakes, too. The ability to learn and grow from your mistakes is a sign of a mature and thoughtful leader. Hey, we're all a work in progress, right? Having to fire one or more employees due to financial challenges is one thing, right? But when a decision is made to fire an employee for performance or behavior issues, that employee probably earned that firing. I've talked with too many owners that gets stressed and anxious because they must fire an employee. Heck, I was one of those owners, right? Of course, there's nothing pleasant about firing someone, it's even tougher when you really like the person. Look, the fact is, the employee put a lot of effort into earning his or her firing by not correcting and improving, right. As the owner, your company is instructing you to terminate this employee, you're simply carrying out your responsibility to give the employee what he or she earned, to be fired. Check this out. Every time I'm asked the question, how long do you wait until you fire someone? My response is, by asking this question, you've waited too long. Have you ever heard the phrase hire slow fire fast, owners often get too caught up in the what ifs and the emotional aspects of firing, you know, they say, well, she's a big producer, where she's a close friend with so and so and she made leave to the list goes on and on. Now is not the time for cold feet or procrastination. Don't second guess yourself, you should know whether or not the employees time is up. Hopefully, most of the time those decisions are behavior based sometimes is because the employee is clearly broken. One of the terms of employment, they agreed to at the time of hiring, you know, like the agreement that in the employee handbook, your job is to grow and protect your business. If someone's hindering that mission, they gotta go and have discussion. Every day you allow a toxic employee to continue working at your business, you give them countless opportunities to hurt that business. Think about this, everyone in the company almost always knows that that employee needs to go and that you're totally avoiding it. Every day the decision lingers on that one employee is doing damage to your culture, and to you, as the leader, do what you should have done a long time ago. You know what the right decision is, really isn't a good time to fire an employee. That's why firing is so tough. My advice to owners is to get the firing over with so you can get back to leading your team and your company. Get that weight off your shoulders and out of your gut because it can be a huge distraction in your life. Make sure you keep your intentions to yourself. I don't care how friendly you are, how close you are to your employees and you think that they're your friends, they do not need to know don't allow the employee in question to discover their termination from somebody else. They deserve to hear it first from you. And they deserve to hear it one on one eyeball to eyeball unless the employee is done something serious that requires immediate termination. Like, you know, you caught them stealing or they're assaulting someone or god forbid worse. Schedule your meeting with them at the end of the business day. And you could have like a manager or a senior team member with you in the meeting, if that makes you a little bit more comfortable. Meet with the employee and get these words out calmly and politely. This is your script. I'm sorry to tell you that we are terminating your employment here. See how easy that is? That immediately transfers the burden from you to the employee. Okay, well another way you might open up the termination discussion is to get it especially if you like the person and you could just see that it's just not a good fit. But they're a nice person, you can give just a great letter of recommendation, type it out beforehand, fold it up, put it in an envelope with the employees last paycheck. And just say, Hey, I'm giving you a letter of recommendation. Don't say anything bad about the employee or the conditions, if how she left or anything like that, just make sure you detail her strong points. Don't don't put her weaknesses in there. You don't want it to sabotage the person's ability to find future employment. So you never know how an employee is going to react to be in terminated, right? Some get pissy, others rage, and a few will get emotional and cry. You don't want that kind of tension in the salon, especially if clients are present. And honestly, it's kind of cruel to that one that that's getting fired. The worst part of being terminated unexpectedly, is having to keep yourself together and collect your belongings while everyone else is working on the floor. Yeah, you want to make sure you allow that person to retain some dignity. So during the termination meeting, be sure to discuss how the clients are to be divided. If your employees signed a contract restricting client contact, remind them of this. If they did not, there's likely nothing you could do to stop them from contacting clients. Whatever the case may be an ethical owner of the departing employee, know that if her loyal clients ask for her contact information that you will give it to those clients freely, right, take the take the high road, then you might want to help them pack their things up, have some boxes in the back so you can help pack up her belongings. Not only is this a nice thing to do, it's a good way to make sure the employee doesn't forget anything, and that they don't steal or damage anything. Never allow a terminated employee to leave things behind. All of their belongings must go out the door with them on their last day. You don't want to have a sheriff show up at the salon and inform you that the employee has accused you of stealing her tools. God forbid, you also don't want that employee to return for items and disrupt the whole salon during business hours. I've had that happen. Say the employee asked you why they're being terminated. Have a list of legitimate reasons why you're not required to disclose why but you should. This will help the employee become a better employee, and hopefully keep them from repeating the same mistakes in the future. Remember, in the previous podcast that we discussed the importance of every employee knowing what is expected of them. Don't assume in common sense, employees are not mind reader's. And if you've been a human being on this planet for any period of time, you've already learned that what is considered common sense is subjective. Also be prepared to lose a few clients. Some people are going to follow their stylists. That's just the way it is. Don't try to stop those clients or hinder them from finding your ex employee. If you know where the employee is going to be working. Tell the clients who asked for that information. If you don't give the clients the ex employees personal contact information if that employee gave you permission to do so, clients don't appreciate being lied to or manipulated. So you'll likely lose them anyway. If you don't, by being honest, you'll keep the clients respect and the respect of your prior employee, there's a good chance that client may not like the employee's new salon, they might return that's happened quite a few times. We call that a win, actually, because people would come back and say I just really liked how I feel here. I like the environment, the the salon space. So if you don't give the employees information, you're gonna make yourself look stingy, immature and insecure. Doesn't look good. Remember, clients have the right to choose where and on whom they spend their money. You don't own the clients. So employees and clients may ask why the employee was terminated. Never tell them it's another business and you don't owe anyone an explanation other than the employee you terminated. Those employees and clients are digging for gossip, a practice You're certainly too much of an adult to participate in. Plus, you're a busy salon owner, you actually may have work to do. Just respond politely. But make it clear that the topic isn't up for discussion is a great go to response. It wouldn't be appropriate or respectful of me to share that information. It's regretful that the arrangement didn't work out but we wish him or her the best. And I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate us talking about it. So let's not if the employees are talking about it, remind them in very clear stern terms that it's not to be discussed. This is important for several reasons. First, your remaining employees will see that you respect the people you employed. Should they resign or be terminated, they know you won't allow them to be the topic of the week. Secondly, it's childish and unprofessional for the employees to be gabbing about company affairs. They have nothing to do with it, especially in front of clients. And finally, and this is important, especially if you live in a small town. This is not news you want to broadcast all over the place. If clients are going to be speaking of your business, it should be about great customer service and the talented professionals. Anything that distracts from that isn't beneficial and should be highly discouraged. Now let's talk about this. Should the terminated employee be the one to stoop so low as to trash talk you or your salon. Don't allow yourself to be baited. I've always said it's best to take the high road Never pour fuel on the fire. If you don't talk about it, the subject will just fade away. The only instance in which it's acceptable to respond is when the employee is doing something to damage the salons reputation or harass you personally. solid evidence may include text messages, emails, social media communications, or a rant on a platform where potential and existing clients are certain to see it like online review site. For an employee's actions to be punishable, they must be criminal harassment and threatening behavior or criminal behaviors. Libel, which is a published false statement intended to hurt your reputation or the salons reputation must be false to be criminal. So if the ex employees angry rant is true, you really can't do anything about it. So you're asking how do you respond to those instances for harassment you call the police. for libel, you call your attorney. Just don't talk about it in front of clients, clients and employees can't do anything for you. When you're emotional and stressed, you could say something stupid and damaging to yourself and the business just don't keep it between you and the lawyers or the police. If it should get that far, every salon managers goal and salon owners goal is to transition the employee out of the salon as smoothly and as with as much graciousness as possible. Some employees will make that impossible, but you can't control the actions of others. You as the authority figure in the salon must maintain your composure. And like that employee fired you have to continue to show your face in the salon. So don't do or say anything that you're going to regret. firing employees is one of the toughest things to do as the owner of a salon. We develop friendships with our team members and they become like family. However, you're a business owner, you have to make business decisions. Just remember to keep the feedback about behaviors and and not every termination will run smoothly. In fact, most don't. But just keep your chin up. Do the right thing. And the right people will find you and your salon. I guarantee it. If you found value in this podcast episode, will you do me a favor? Will you share it with your salon owner friends? Tell them to follow the show so they don't miss an episode. And remember, let us know if there's a challenge you're having as a salon owner, we might be able to help you find a solution. Take care until next time. Hey there. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast this week. I'm so honored you come back and listen and that you share the salon ownership Made Easy show with your friends and family. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode. Just know that I love bringing you this content and I love bringing you great guests and one of the ways you can help us is to leave the podcast a review. So if you have just a second Would you go over and leave us a review for the salon ownership Made Easy show. Thanks again guys. Until next week, stay amazing