How to Terminate an Employee with Dignity - Lori Torres of Parcel Pending

The first time I was fired was when I was 16 years old and working at Numero Uno Pizza. It happened really strangely, I went in to pick up my paycheck and the manager let me know that this paycheck would be my last one as I was no longer employed there. 

No warning and no explanation.

Bewildered, I simply walked out the door, walked across the street and was hired by their competitor. 

The way in which the whole experience went down, left me feeling embarrassed & resentful. 

Never again did I eat at that restaurant because of the way they made me feel. 

Our guest today: Lori Torres, Founder & Former CEO of Parcel Pending 

The nation’s leading provider of innovative package management solutions. Prior to Parcel Pending, Lori was SVP of property operations at The Irvine Company. 

She has been recognized on multiple occasions for her leadership, including being named 2017 “Innovator of the Year” by the Orange County Business Journal and chosen as one of 13 entrepreneurs admitted into the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ 2017 North America class.

Lori worked to build a world class organization and is going to share her wisdom.

Today we discuss:

• Making the difficult decision to part ways 
• How to fire a person in a way that leaves everyone feeling good about themselves

Challenge today?

• When is the right time to make a change and terminate someone?
• Can you afford to do it, do you have the bandwidth
• Taking the time to really understand 
• Have an intervention- performance improvement plan, use to be successful
• Articulate to really improve the person's performance
• Everything possible to make sure they are successful
• Accountability tool &  

Why is this important to the company?

• Benefits: often find someone better
• Help the person you are terminating to the world,
• Embrace the people management side of the business
• Termination is part of the evolution of the company
• Change needs to happen,
• This is the game we are playing, these are the rules, here’s how we move forward
• What you need at $3mil is different at $10M  

Rick’s Nuggets

• Be proactive in your hiring
• Hiring for growth first - start with the end in mind
• “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou

How do we solve the problem? 

• Identify performance issues first
  • Candid open, specific conversation
  • Time frame to meet the expectations
  • Check in: not meeting expectations, 

• Provide a performance improvement plan
  • Whatree performance is now, when they are not meeting expectations, when we are going to convenience to review

• Termination
  • Reason for termination:
  • Labor attorney- worth the money to handle things properly
  • Quick conversation : next step, it is not working
  • Part ways with dignity! 
  • Severance with a legal document release of liability & non-disparagement 
  • Walk them out the door and wish them well
  • Offer help to help them move forward

• Sample Termination
  • Rick gets Fired!

Rick’s Nuggets

• Really take seriously the performance metrics that were set for your people in the job description
• Evidence to support the hire first!

Key Takeaways -Value:

• Really spend the time to hire correct people. It's like dating, Interview a lot
• When the person is not performing, invest the time to 
• Have non-confrontational conversations with people

Guest Links:

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/loritorres/

Company: https://www.parcelpending.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ParcelPending

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/parcelpending

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parcelpending/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFj7yh4kDC7Jx5CDUYnar7A

 

This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/