Likely, your worker or employees manual gives you these standards. Is it possible to avoid misbehavior and separating? If you have a jobholder who abuses alcohol, your first choice is to get them some help. If you believe you're "laying off Joe," you might only read Chapter 11: "Method for Laying Off Workers." In this case, you would make a mistake following this method for terminating Joe, and not following the proper procedures and choices given in Chapters 9 and 10 for firings.

For example, you can fire someone for being a Dallas Cowboys fan - clearly a stupid reason unless, undoubtedly, you live in Washington DC:). (By the way, if this is a high risk layoff, you don't need a termination notification since your goal is to get the worker to resign voluntarily.) Although this is an important factor, it's more important for you to know how to dismiss properly. As you may recall, we met Sherry, a recovering alcoholic and an office administrator with lackluster productivity. If the insubordination occurs and could damage your small business, then you must take full use of your policies and reprimand the worker, possibly even dimissing their employment. Get an original signature from the person that he or she received the letter. (Chapter 4 covers this in detail.) It is frequently best to have a third-party do this for you. In your planning, don't fail to consider the employee's character and personality and prepare to handle any situation that may arise. Even verbal business policy can offer you protection so long as you can prove that everyone heard the do's and don't's in your small company work place. How you close the notice will largely depend on the issues surrounding each particular separating.