Employers Rights Legal

Terminating an employee? Here's what you must consider before firing.

If you are an employer or a business manager, you will eventually have to terminate an employee for cause. Therefore, you will need an employee dismissal letter sample. While human resource departments have personnel with skills in this area, you may work in a small business that does not offer such support. You will have to write the letter yourself. Instead of doing this from scratch, it is wise to have an employee dismissal letter sample to work from. You will have to tailor it to your needs, but it will give you a basic foundation. This article includes some samples and notes that you will find useful when writing this letter.

First, your employee dismissal letter sample must include an area to describe the reasons for termination. Obviously, the sample cannot give you the exact wording. The reasons for firing an employee will depend on each specific situation. But the sample should provide some examples. Remember when writing your own letter, you must clearly express why you are firing the employee.

Also, the general wording in your employee dismissal letter sample should set a respectful tone. You want to avoid opinions and any wording the employee could misinterpret as prejudice. Remember, your company saw potential in this employee at one time and hired the person. It reflects badly on you and the company if the letter fails to communicate professionally.

Here is an employee dismissal letter sample. Please take note in this letter how is uses the standard business practice of putting the "bottom line up front." There are other formats for this of course, you should get to the point as quickly as possible.

Employee Dismissal Letter Sample Format

Dear Employee,

I have decided to dismiss you from employment at <Company Name> effective immediately. My decision was made based upon a review of your past performance while employed here. The history of your job performance consists of the following events:

* On <Date>, you were given a first written warning in regards your failure to meet the deadlines of two important milestones for a web development project. (Include the specific details on the project and the milestones here.) The milestones were on <Date1> and <Date2> respectively.
* On <Date>, you were given a second written warning after failing to deliver a project plan by its deadline on <Date3>. (Again, describe in detail what the project was and what results you expected.)

And after the second warning, you continued to have further instances of failure to accomplish assigned work tasks:

* On <Date>, you did not complete the corrections of flaws found in the first software test release for Project XYZ.
* You continue to fail to give project status updates which could help to manage any problems you may have been having.
* You have repeated unexplained absences often on due dates of project milestones.

After the second warning, we discussed ways to help you manage your time better to reach appointed milestones and due dates. You also attended classes given by the company at no charge to you on topics of time management and effective organization skills yet your performance has not improved.

After careful thought and discussion with the Human Resources Manager, you are being dismissed as an employee of this company effective immediately. You will be paid for two weeks following the effective date of termination instead of working through the customary two-week notice period.

You have the right to appeal this decision with the Grievances Unit of this company. The policy and procedure for filing a grievance will also be given to you at this time. Feel free to call the Human Resources Manager at 555-1212 if there are any further questions.

Sincerely,

Unit Manager

As you have read, the tone is respectful. The tone should never be apologetic. Remember, you, as a manager, are only doing your job. There is nothing to apologize for as you made every attempt to work with and help the employee before dismissal.