Thank you for firing me

Crucial in the process of career support of the team members is to understand the person’s strengths and weakness and be able to have an honest and open conversation around it. Sometimes this process you realize that the only way forward is to go separate ways.
When you have reached that point as manager, you have one task and one task only and that is to make sure that the person leaves you and your company with a good feeling about him/herself and also the company if possible, but that is secondary.
How do I make a person feel good about being fired? 

Taking a very pragmatic approach when I fired our food and beverage manager who had been with us for less than a year.

1. I listed all his qualities, I went back to my notes why I hired him and then I listed why I wanted to fire him.
2. Then I asked myself what was important for him going forward from these lists.
3. We then had first a conversation about the reasons why I wanted to fire him and I send him away to think about them. I asked him if he thought I was right and if these were valid reasoning’s for letting him go.
4. A week later we meet again and then he explained how he had considered my comments, what he had agreed with and not. His conclusion was that he felt the same issues had been pressuring him and actually he didn’t enjoy doing these tasks.
5. As we talked, I brought up all the positive reasons I had seen in him when I hired him, what I appreciated the most about working together with him and what job roles I saw would be better suited for him (even though we did not have these in our hotel). Upon parting, he thanked me for firing him and he was enthusiastic about going out there and finding the right job for him.

Read the full story and more about recruitment, onboarding, career supporting and firing in my book, when it  comes out later this year.
Interested in pre-ordering your copy - contact [email protected]