Terminating an Employee: Handling the Aftermath in Your Organization

How leaders handle the aftereffects of any change, but particularly negative change, dictates their organization’s ability to weather the difficulty, thrive and achieve its mission.

So it’s important that leaders who make the decision to terminate an employee take the following steps once they have informed the employee:

Communicate

One of the biggest frustrations nonprofit staff members express regarding leadership centers on communication. In dealing with the effects of a termination, find the right balance between protecting privacy and creating the transparency your organization’s culture needs.

• To those immediately around the affected person(s): Identify the people this decision is most likely to affect. At larger organizations, they may be in the department in which the person worked; at smaller organizations, they may be the entire staff. Tell these staff members what has happened, but know you may not be able to share why. Find the message you can deliver with authenticity, then find out what other employees may need to adapt to the new reality and consider how you can respond to them.

• To the entire organization: To communicate anything of sensitivity to the organization you may want to deliver the message in person – if the organization’s size allows such a gathering. Again, smaller organizations can feel changes and departures intensely, so getting everyone together can be an opportunity for dialogue. If the termination is a result of restructuring or program change, communication reinforces how the changes uphold your group’s mission, services, and culture.

• To external stakeholders: Communication to external partners, affiliates or volunteers can be simple, focusing on any reporting changes or work transitions and excluding information about termination reasons.

Support

Leaders strengthen their organizations by supporting staff through change and adversity. For many groups, the loss of a colleague counts as both.

It can sound overblown to assign so much emotion or reaction to a termination of an employee, but for many, it can be dramatic.

Staff members at some nonprofit organizations have described the firing of a colleague as “disturbing,” “stressful,” even something they “thought they wouldn’t see in the service sector.”

Think about your workforce – how does it handle change? How do employees interact with one another? When someone leaves, is it disruptive emotionally?

Know your staff members and be prepared to help them through it.

Refocus

As with any change, move the organization from what has happened to what will happen in the future.

Bring the focus back to work, mission, and service.

If the actions were felt organizationwide, take this time to reconnect with employees and check in on their level of engagement and motivation. At smaller organizations, you can do this via informal conversations. At larger ones, ask managers and human resources to take the pulse to understand employees’ focus and concerns.

Taking the time to focus on these conversations and purposefully act on this feedback is crucial in moving forward and supporting your organization’s continued health.