I know what you are thinking; we should have paid her more money in wages and perhaps she wouldn't have had to steal. We thought about that, but here's the problem: if we paid her more and her thievery continued unabated then we lost money unnecessarily. In addition, other saleswomen would have been offended that we paid someone with less seniority more money. I do not pay commissions nor do I like the commission system for retail stores - I believe it puts too much pressure on employees to hard-sell our customers. I want my customers to feel comfortable when they come into my business. How do I get sales-persons to work hard without commissions? Simple, I fire slackers.

So firing is an art, not a science.

A few years later Alice opened her own jewelry business on 47th Street in New York City. I wonder sometimes if she ever hired a women who stole from her, what she would do.

Everything employees do is my business

Sometimes you have to fire even though your workers are doing nothing legally or morally wrong. Here's an example. In the Fox TV series House Episode 515: "Unfaithful" which aired 16 Feb 2009, House gives two of his employees, Foreman and Thirteen, an ultimatum: choose between their relationship or their jobs.

Some of you may be thinking that what two consenting adults do off the job is no business of their employer. While it may be no business of government, it is indeed the business of the employer. Speaking as an employer, anything that affects work, is my business. So House is quite correct; if a relationship degrades the performance of his employees, he is fully within his rights to fire one or both of them. He was being kind in giving a warning.

My readers will recall my article regarding the TV series Boston Legal, Season 5, Episode 509, "Kill, Baby, Kill!" where a woman was fired for voting for John McCain for President.

I have fired employees for being too generous with their donations to religious or political groups, for smoking, for wearing perfume, and if I had to layoff any employees I certainly would look at those who voted for Obama before considering firing anyone else.

Some of you may argue that I shouldn't just blanket fire a smoker, suppose, like Alice, they make more money for the business than they cost? But I have found that smokers do not make more money for any business. They do not work as hard, are always looking for a smoke break, stink up the office, turn off potential customers, cost employers more in health care costs, and endanger my health and that last is very hard to put a penny to.

Although everyone knows you can be fired for consistent incompetence, violations of company policy, constantly being late or absent, or for moral turpitude (the Kellogg's firing of Michal Phelphs comes to mind (1)), many people do not realize that, provided employers do not violate Federal Laws Prohibiting Job Discrimination, they can fire employees for whatever reason they like.

Of course, large employers have to take into consideration that incompetent, constantly tardy or absent, thieving, criminal employees will likely take to litigation no matter how righteous the firing is.

For example, even if an employee is completely incapable of doing the job, some employers have to give the employee a reasonable opportunity to succeed. In this manner they show that they tried. I do not bother. A few years ago we hired a young man who claimed he understood Cisco networking. After 5 hours it was determined he knew nothing and was hoping to learn on the job. He was sent packing before the end of day.

All employers should have established clear, legal, and consistent policies. For example, look at my Employee Manual. If an employee has violated any of my policies then termination is immediate and appropriate.

While on the topic of immediate firing, make sure that before your employee knows he or she is fired that you have confiscated or secured all computer files, disks, customer data, keys, passwords, credit cards, business cards, etc. All personal effects of the employee should be in a box in the same room as the termination process so that there is no reason for the fired employee to return to the desk or work area. All phone calls to the employee's extension should be forwarded to a supervisor or a replacement employee.

Repeated lateness or absence: Under the section titled Missing Work in my Employee Manual, my rules are:

Unless you are dying in a hospital (note from doctor relating to your terminal illness), do not miss work because you don't feel good or because your boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with you. Suck it up or I will break up with you.

If your home is on fire and you can somehow assist the firefighters through your intimate knowledge of firefighting techniques unique to your domicile, then an exception can be made. Otherwise wait until the workday is over before visiting your smoldering ruins.

Large Corporations have a harder time firing people

Unfortunately some savvy, quick-to-court employees will try to blame their lateness or absenteeism on some medical condition prompting the employer to verify the condition. If they genuinely have a medical condition, you may need to accommodate that condition, or try to. To avoid this problem, although it may be illegal, employers may be forced to avoid hiring people with medical conditions in the first place precisely because those with medical problems will try to take advantage. I have no doubt that the reason that blacks may not always get the job is not because of racial prejudice but because employers fear that getting rid of incompetent blacks is harder than other races because blacks may try to sue for wrongful termination based on race. This is one area where strong advocacy of black rights results in the opposite effect.

Although employers should be able to freely fire an employee at any time, there is an art to firing people in the modern era. In the old days when someone was fired they went out and got another job - no problem. Today, with the attitude of entitlement among today's employees, an employer can easily get sued for "wrongful termination" even though the employee knows he or she is lazy, incompetent, constantly late, unreliable, rude to customers, guilty of repeated unexcused absenteeism, habitually violating company policies, physically abusive toward other employees, a drug addict, an alcoholic, a thief and an embezzler.

Employers also have to worry that some employees may be deranged enough to come back and shoot them. We live in tough times. I try to weed these people out before hiring them, but people lie - they say they don't smoke or take drugs so you have to learn to read people better.

Unfortunately many employers, in order to avoid getting sued, need to hire an employment attorney or compliance specialist in firing employees. Misdeeds or violations of company policy need to be documented, at least two warnings have to be given in writing, if the person is addicted the employer may need to pay for some type of counseling or treatment, and if after all the efforts at trying not to fire anyone, the employee still fails to do his work properly, then and only then does a company finally fire the bum.

I try to break up my company into separate entities so as to fall below the radar or control of state or federal labor boards.

One of the reasons that I will never permit a union to organize in my business is that unions interfere in the proper dismissal of employees. Although union members may think this is a good thing, the fact that we have lost tens of millions of jobs overseas because of unions in those industries testifies to the opposite. Take the Michael Phelps case. Personally I see nothing wrong with marijuana. It should be legal. But Kellogg's, although I believe in the end they will rue firing him (2), has every right to do so. However, if Phelps were a member of the United Auto Workers, then even if he were photographed buggering a small child while slitting the throat of a call-girl and scrawling "Kellogg's Sucks" on the wall with his feces, it would have been difficult if not impossible to fire him.

Many Union members will ask, "What's wrong with that? Why should a boss easily fire an employee?" I'll tell you why: In France it is impossible to fire anyone, consequently no one wants to be the first to hire a young person in case he turns out to be an inept moron. So unemployment among French youth is unbearably high, more than twice that of the general population (3).

Unions are the cause of most of the unemployment in this country. I would sooner move my business overseas than allow a union to organize my workers.

Here's a forum where you can vent on how you got fired.

ENDNOTES

(1):

Cereal Wednesday Blog, Kellogg Fires Phelps From Endorsement Deal

Last summer Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics to the adoration of billions. This past fall Michael Phelps smoked pot from a bong at a college party, while under contract with Kellogg and countless other companies in millions of dollars in endorsement deals.

"Michael’s most recent behavior is not consistent with the image of Kellogg. His contract expires at the end of February and we have made a decision not to extend his contract," Kellogg spokeswoman Susanne Norwitz said in a statement yesterday.

(2):

StopTheDrugWar, Kellogg's on Michael Phelps

Thanks to you, the campaign against Kellogg's for dumping Michael Phelps has gotten the media's attention. We've been the subject of hundreds of news articles, as well as a segment on CNN.

Now is your chance to increase the heat! We've swamped Kellogg's with comments on their phone lines, and now we can make sure they listen by sending an email urging them to retract their statement on Phelps.

(3):

BBC, 16 Jan 2006, France tackles youth unemployment

More than 20% of France's 18 to 25-year-olds are unemployed - a figure double the national average of 9.6%.

Among the country's poorest communities youth unemployment stands at 40%, a figure largely blamed for the riots that swept across France last year.