Advice for Facing a Firing with Grace, Dignity, and Minimal Career Damage

JOB MARKET

By Jeffrey Klineman

David Nimmons liked his job. But more specifically, he says, he believed strongly in the mission of his

employer, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, an organization in New York that fights the spread of HIV. So, he says, at one point during his three-year tenure, he volunteered for a demotion, switching from deputy executive director to director of education so he could do more to help the people the organization serves.

In the education department, he says, he brought together difficult employees and turned them into a cohesive unit, and feels that he built a strong reputation among his organization’s clients.

But one day in 1996, when he went into his regular weekly meeting with his supervisor, the organization’s still-new executive director, he was fired.

“I’d lost a political battle I didn’t fully appreciate that I was even involved in,” he says. “I had somewhat different views than the person who was brought in above me, and he was fairly uncomfortable with some of the positions I thought were important to take. My supervisor basically said my position was being eliminated.”

While Mr. Nimmons was angry, he recalls, he didn’t rage or storm out. “I’d worked long enough to know it wouldn’t be the last job I’d ever have,” says the 47-year-old.

Instead, he took three weeks to depart, working with the department heads he was leaving behind, trying to make the transition seamless.

“I felt I’d been doing very good work, and I didn’t feel like I wanted to create problems,” he says. “The last thing I wanted to do was drag it out publicly. I didn’t want to start attacking or filing suits because I wanted my program to run well. For me, that made the leave-taking bearable, because I felt like at least we were going to leave things in good shape.”

Handling the Impact

Mr. Nimmons, who now writes books and heads a gay men’s organization in New York called Manifest Love, gracefully handled one of the hardest shots a nonprofit employee can take: being fired or laid off. Because attachment to their causes is so strong, the emotional impact can be especially strong for charity workers when they are dismissed from their jobs.

“People work at these places because of their personal value systems as much as their love for their jobs,” says Peggy Outon, executive director of the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management, at Robert Morris University, in Pittsburgh. “Anyone hates to lose their position, but you’ve also lost access to a cause.”

The challenge for people who have lost their jobs, say recruiters, nonprofit employers, and workers who have bounced back from a layoff, is to leave a position in a way that makes it as easy as possible to seek a new position elsewhere.

Just as for for-profit workers, nonprofit employees can be dismissed for numerous reasons. And in many cases, workers are not at fault.

However, the vast majority of firings occur because employees failed to reach performance goals, according to Patricia Singletary, a human-resources consultant to several East Coast nonprofit organizations who works in Sarasota, Fla. Firings for unethical behavior make up a small portion of all dismissals, she says, but a growing number of employees are laid off simply because of budget restrictions and needs to reduce staff.

For those who are let go because of tight budgets, there is hope, says Barbara Frankel, a career coach who has worked with both for-profit and nonprofit clients at the Strickland Group, in New York. That sort of setback happens to many people throughout their careers, she says — and thus doesn’t carry the stigma it once did. She estimates that nearly 70 percent of her clients have been fired at some point in their careers — although, she notes, people who have been fired are also more likely to seek career counseling.

“A number of years ago, there weren’t the large-scale layoffs in which many people were fired in an organization — people were really singled out when they were fired,” she says. “Now, given cutbacks and changes in the work force, it may feel personal, but it may be understood in a larger context. There are so many people out in the marketplace who have been ‘let go’ that they’re not alone.”

Tips for a Graceful Exit

But being part of an economic trend isn’t much comfort for those who have been booted by their employers. Controlling the impact of a firing takes both immediate and long-term effort on the part of the employee; if it is done properly, an unwanted exit, while still immediately painful, eventually can be looked upon as a positive turning point, according to George Maynard, vice president of philanthropy and partnership for the Greenville Hospital System, in South Carolina.

“When someone comes in and says ‘I got fired from that job, and here’s what I learned, ‘ that’s a stand-up person,” says Mr. Maynard, who lost a job several years ago during a restructuring at the nonprofit United Health Services, in Binghamton, N.Y. “If you don’t grow from a layoff, that’s sad.”

That growth process, say recruiters and nonprofit employers, can begin as soon as workers receive their pink slips. To start on the path to recovery, here are some steps fired workers should take immediately.

Listen carefully. Discern the manager’s reasons for the dismissal: Is it for performance reasons? A budget restructuring? Unlawful conduct? If it’s one of the first two, Ms. Frankel says, employees will want to find out what the manager will tell prospective bosses when workers apply for other jobs. If it is illegal or unethical conduct, she says, workers may need outside assistance, such as a labor-union representative, lawyer, or job counselor.

“You want to know how the employer and employee are going to agree publicly to explain why this is happening,” says David Edell, a recruiter in New York who serves nonprofit clients. “You want to ask, ‘When I go out of this office, is the answer, “I got fired,” or is it, “We’re retrenching a number of positions.”’”

Take a breath. Because the story behind the dismissal is likely to affect a future career, it is important for a fired employee to organize his or her thoughts, says Mr. Maynard.

He recalls how his previous employer, United Health Services, asked him to resign from his position running the public-affairs department.

“The best thing I ever did was to take a deep breath, not respond, and say, ‘I can’t give you an answer right now, and I need 24 hours, ‘” he says. “I went to a good friend with an executive-search firm. She helped me think through what I needed to do. I went back in the next day and said, ‘I’m not resigning. You’re going to have to fire me. Nobody’s going to believe I just quit, and it’s your decision, not one that I wanted to make.’”

By waiting, Mr. Maynard was able to return and ask for four more months of severance pay and help finding a new job, along with a letter describing the circumstances behind his leaving — that it was due to a restructuring plan rather than anything he had done. And he received it.

Secure references. Even when an employee has been fired, it is important to take references away from a position. Positive references can help show that the worker was a good employee in a bad situation — or can help show that, even though things didn’t work out, colleagues still appreciated an employee’s skills, says Colette M. Murray, chairwoman of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, who also runs a search firm for nonprofit organizations in San Diego.

“It’s particularly important when you’ve been eliminated that someone can speak to your productivity and say that things just went against you,” says Ms. Murray. “Your immediate supervisor and someone who might have reported to you are both great people to have prepare letters when your position is eliminated.”

Even if the employee and employer differ on the reasons for the dismissal, the departing worker should find as many allies as possible who will vouch for his or her skills, says Mr. Edell. “You can say, ‘Look, I am going to go on and look for other jobs, and is there a way you can offer references that won’t be a deterrent to my future employment? ‘” he says. “You can — and should — ask the question.”

Search for common ground. When the dismissal is acrimonious, it is important for both the employer and the employee to try to find some way to tell the story that can help both of them, particularly if a lawsuit is a possibility.

Ms. Singletary recommends that employees who are concerned that they might be “torpedoed” by their superiors during future reference checks should try to bring in a third party to mediate.

“I’d have a talk with human resources,” she says. “I’d say, ‘I know this individual I’ve worked with, and I know he or she will say negative things about me — I want to have assurances you’ll talk to that individual.’ And I’d put that in writing and ask that it be put in my file.”

If the nonprofit group does not have a human-resources department, charities will sometimes be willing to bring in a consultant or other outsider to make sure both parties can agree on a reason for the dismissal that won’t kill the worker’s — or the supervisor’s — career, says John Dooney, director of human resources at the nonprofit Society for Human Resource Management, in Alexandria, Va. “All employers get concerned about lawsuits,” he says. “Even if there was cause, they don’t want to say anything.”

For employees who are sure their former bosses will not give them good references, take heart: Given the potential for lawsuits, many supervisors these days are wary of providing any information at all to recruiters, even about employees they loved, beyond confirmation of the former workers’ dates of employment. Fired employees can try to have their former employers put in writing a promise that they will only provide dates of employment to those who call for references, says Mr. Dooney.

A recruiter or potential boss wouldn’t assume that such a bare-bones reference signals a problem, but rather that the former employer is careful about making referrals, says Hedy Helsell, the executive director of the Center for Nonprofit Management, in Dallas.

“In a perfect world,” she says, “you’d like someone to be enthusiastic or eloquent about your performance — but even that might not be the smartest thing to do, simply because it’s not neutral. Neutral is safe.”

But that works both ways. While employees who know they are leaving an acrimonious situation might be happy that their former bosses won’t be able to say much about them, it is still important that they find people who can relate good things about their performance, says Mary Heideman, a recruiter in Kansas City, Mo., who works with nonprofit clients nationwide. She suggest that employees keep their list of potential references up-to-date along with their résumés.

Even a business that the job seeker worked with peripherally during his or her time at the charity may be able to give a reference on the job seeker’s behalf, she says.

“It’s an employee’s responsibility to develop a good reference pool, and the more recent, the better,” she says. “That isn’t always absolutely possible for every aspect of the job, but someone should seek out individuals who can speak to certain key responsibilities.”

Ask about severance. Compensation deals for fired workers aren’t standard or even required at any employer, but they are becoming more common at charities, particularly for senior officers at larger organizations, according to Ms. Singletary.

Organizations with budgets of more than $10-million, she says, are particularly likely to let executives and other high-ranking employees negotiate compensation as part of their hiring contract, in the event that they are let go — often a few weeks’ or months’ pay, health-care coverage, and help finding a new job. “I think people have become savvy enough to know to ask for them wherever they are,” she says.

Ms. Heideman says that severance clauses for nonprofit executive directors are becoming more common because boards are growing more unpredictable in their expectations. “A board of directors is a very dynamic boss, and it can change every year,” she says. “That means that the direction of an organization can, too, and so can the desired skill set for the person heading that organization. So you need to be protected.”

Other lower-ranking employees, though, have a smaller safety net when they suffer job loss. They might receive unemployment benefits, and while they may be able to continue their health insurance for a while under the federal Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or Cobra, it can get expensive. Which is why, Ms. Murray says, it is important to secure whatever benefits possible from a soon-to-be-former employer.

“Once you get the word you’re being terminated, you want to pull out the stops,” she says. “Let them know it’s extremely hard on you and your family. No matter what they hand you — two weeks’ severance or four weeks’ — it’s OK to take the check they’re giving. But it doesn’t mean you can’t ask for more. It doesn’t mean you can’t ask them to continue to pay your health care. Or, depending on how sticky it is, you could have an office, or ask for outplacement help, and have the employer pay for that. Sometimes employers just haven’t thought of these things.”

Exit gracefully. “It’s extremely important to exit with the right stuff,” Mr. Maynard says. “You can be bitter, you can be angry, you can raise all sorts of Cain, but if you’re going to be there for a few weeks or months as they transition you out, you’re going to have a lot of people watching you and how you leave. Just try not to burn any bridges. Philanthropy is based on relationships.”

In fact, a dignified exit can solidify those relationships, according to Ms. Frankel. Above all, she says, don’t simply disappear. “You want to leave being able to say goodbye to individuals in the best way possible,” she says. “By thanking and acknowledging people you’ve worked with, you leave with a sense of integrity and self-respect.”

Have you endured the loss of a job? Share your experiences and coping strategies in the Job Market online forum.