Firing/Discipline Interview
John B. /Spread Trade
- On what basis would you consider firing someone? Would you ever consider a second chance? I fire for poor performance or misconduct.
- How do you discipline your employees? Verbal warning, written warning and then fired.
- What type of action would merit disciplinary action? Poor performance or misconduct.
- When you are considering disciplining or terminating an employee, do you first investigate and/or take into consideration outside influences (employee health/mental health struggles, family issues, etc) that may be contributing to the employee’s performance issues at work? Yes, and we tried to be helpful problem resolution, sometimes more than we should.
- What kind of concessions are you willing to make in order to help an employee with certain disabilities (ADD, depression/anxiety,) succeed at their job? At what point do you say enough is enough and let someone go due to their inability to meet the job expectations? One of our employees was always stressed and having trouble. Turns out she was going under from taking out loans with Check City. We covered the debt, she relaxed and was able to do her job. She worked another year for use and was a good employee.
- Do you have a certain number of warnings that you give before terminating an employee? Three step process above listed. Verbal, written, fire. Do you always make sure that they know what the next step in the disciplinary process is, and that they know specifically what they need to improve on in order to keep their job? Yes and yes. We had clear cut assignments and frequent evaluations/reviews for each employee. We also held daily meetings for overall company directions, goals and ideas/needs/assignments.
- When it comes to tardiness, how many times of an employee being late to work will they be given a warning? and how many times will it lead to termination? We had flexible schedules as long as the work got done before the deadline. Employees set their own schedule. Poor performance, inability to improve was cause termination.
- If an employee continues to cause a hostile work environment despite having seniority will they be terminated. Misconduct was grounds for firing.
- Concerning warnings, does a warning related to being late have the same standards to one causing damage to equipments, ect? Misconduct was grounds for firing and accidents we worked with.
- Do you give opportunities to the employee to “turn their act around”, and if so how long? Yes, but again, three strikes your out. Educated to expectation at hiring. Frequent review /evaluation of performance. Employee is ultimately responsible to make a change in his behavior/performance.
- Can an employee that was fired still get a good recommendation from that job for another? Is it ok for that to be brought up in an interview? Yes, but we were always honest. So our company was sales. A person could be a really good worker, be there on time, do assigned tasks well, be a team player and be a poor salesman. He would get fired for poor salesmanship. But we would recommend him based off of other strengths and work ethic.
- Do you agree in an space where “tattling is tolerated?” or if one person tells that person has to pick a bad habit as well and work towards it. No tattling at all. 1st. talk to the person you had an issue with, work it out. 2nd come to manager and the 3 of you work it out. 3rd will be a written warning for the one causing trouble. Could be the one with the grievance he can not let go. We were performance driven. If you have an issue with someone, but that person does their job and we have no qualms with them, maybe it is your inability to be a team player causing the issues.
- Do you do any routine education on important policies and standards of behavior in hopes of keeping employees informed about expectations and thereby decrease the need for discipline events? We hired a stickler to explain the rules and handbook to employees when they got hired. If we saw something twice, we would educate to the expected standard in the employee handbook, at the next morning meeting.
- Do you have any retraining tools for employees who want to do better, but need assistance to get better at a specific weakness? We were constantly coaching and motivating. But we mainly hired skilled/accomplished salesman.
What was your first firing or discipline like and how does that compare to your current skill set in this arena? What did you learn that made you more effective in this difficult time? The first time I fired someone was emotional and a major motivation for changing how I fired people after that.. I learned: 1. Be consistent 2. If you are going to fire someone, have a reason and put it into writing. 3. Be formal 4. When you hire have clear cut expectations, policies and frequent evaluations. That way, all along, an employee knew where they stood. No surprises