At times, sudden lay off without warning makes for a serious hardship on the worker involved. Since you gave no reason for separating this individual, the jury will have to seriously consider the worker's "made-up" reason. o Excessive personal e-mail use. You or your manager should have the right legal documents in place before you begin separation procedures. You should give copies of all written warnings to proper heads of department, management, and unquestionably the jobholder. When I asked you about it, you said, "I was here that day, but I didn't feel too good either. While building the case against the employee, keep Personnel and your supervisor informed of all significant transgressions by the disgruntled worker. You meet with the worker in your office and inform him "It's just not working out." You want him to leave voluntarily. The witness's signature then serves as proof the jobholder received a warning. This procedure gives you time to build your case and shows you gave the executive several chances to increase before layoff. With a low risk separation, the employee is unlikely to sue and you have evidence justifying the layoff for a legitimate reason.

Then fire the manager's employment. This will normally make a legal action or a threat of one disappear immediately. Of course, you can always extend the deadline, but you don't need to inform Bob this. This second rule applies even if this is less than a third of the jobholder base. o The worker is about to get an expected financial benefit (for example vesting of stock options).