What you must consider if the employee ignores your
warning
A good severance package says a great deal about the humanity
of a business manager. A manager can tailor it to the size
and financial capacity of the business while, at the same time,
create a world of goodwill within the community.
The employee who, like Bill Bailey, finds himself or herself
thrown out the door with nothing but a fine-tooth comb, does
not leave with the same dignity of the employee who walks out
with a folder full of hope. An alert management is aware that
when workers must be terminated through no fault of their own,
it creates talk among that person's family and acquaintances.
A good severance package allows that employee to tell others
what the business "did for me" instead of what it "did
to me."
The severance package need not be elaborate to create goodwill,
but the absence of such a program will not go unnoticed by
either the terminated employee or those with whom he or she
makes later contact.
Finding solutions to severance package benefits.
A severance package is not the same as a contractual severance
payment. A package includes more items like a letter of recommendation,
help to find another position or an option to stay on the group
health insurance program for a limited time. There are many
ways a business can helps its former employee. Something as
simple as a certificate of appreciation costs the business
little, nothing more than the price of stationery and copies.
Why go to all that trouble?
Management may think the final paycheck and whatever severance
pay required by law is enough. Such thinking is short-sighted
and oblivious to the positive public relations benefits of
having a good severance package. Besides, it goes a long way
toward ameliorating any resentments the terminated employee
might feel toward the business.
In other words, having a good severance package to offer a
departing employee moves HR into the realm of PR, making the
effort put into the package all the more worthwhile. The sense
the company cares by offering such a package to departing employees
affects the ones who remain on the payroll. The importance
of this is immeasurable. It eases tension among employees who
might otherwise get the idea the business has no heart, and
they might begin to imagine themselves as one day walking out
the door empty-handed.
How
I discipline employees and terminate (when necessary)...
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