How to Terminate a Well-Liked Employee

Dear H.D.,

It’s always unfortunate when it comes time to part ways with someone. I’ve been there many times. While you are confident in your decision, know you will likely not get what you expect from this individual. Be prepared for anything in the discussion.

As far as post-discussion, the less said the better. I’ve seen people try and justify a decision to force someone out or generally share more than is necessary (and legally prudent). The best approach is to gather your team together if you are in-person, or virtually if you are remote, and say “(Person’s name) is no longer with us. We are not at liberty to say more than this.” Then, share exactly what the plan is to cover his work. You will want to have a clear communication plan for clients and talking points for your team to use when a client calls and asks about this person.

This tends to be the hardest part. Saying very little about the decision can’t extend to saying very little about how the team is supposed to move forward, and what they need to say and do! The part about the person being gone should be short and sweet; the part about how the team should talk about things, what bases need to be covered, how the firm is handling communication proactively with clients and whether the person left anything behind that needs to be dealt with should be thoughtful and thorough.

Dear Bev,

We need to kick off the new year starting fresh on a number of things. We’ve lost three team members in the last quarter (one moved, one had her third child and is choosing to stay home and one walked out for lunch one day and didn’t return, but we weren’t too upset about it). We are part of a larger firm and the message has been “hiring freeze” since November 1. I’m fairly certain come January we will be in a different place. But our team of nine, which until very recently was 12, is struggling to get through the days. We have brought on a number of new clients and are spending time onboarding, getting year-end reviews with clients done and trying to make sure nothing gets missed.

We need a plan for January 1. I can’t see us getting anything in place over the holidays, but it would be shortsighted to wait until after the new year. As I’ve learned, new things come along quickly, and suddenly it is the middle of the month. I want to have our team energized and focused to kick off the year right at the very start.

B.F.

Dear B.F.,

I’m finding so many of my clients – small to large ones – are in the “doing more with less” category due to defections to other firms, the great resignation and the inability to fill open positions. It can be tough on the team to have to keep pushing without seeing potential respite from doing so.

Your desire to pull the team together is a good one. I am doing a three-part series with some teams at a large client firm; the timing has worked well to get them set up for success at the start of the new year. Consider doing something like the following:

1. Soon – early December – call the team together either virtually or in-person and establish your desired outcome(s) for 2023. Be very specific and make sure everyone is on the same page and agrees. Your goals should be both quantitative (often the easy part) and qualitative. They can be overall goals (where do we want to be by the end of 2023) or smaller ones (how do we want to be by mid-2023 in our ability to get things done). Allow people to paint a picture of success and talk about outcomes and what they want to have happen by some established date(s).

2. In this same meeting (I recommend 90 minutes for this) allow the team to raise obstacles to success. What’s getting in the way? You’re going to hear a lot about lack of time and resources. Orient them, once you capture the list, to what they can control, what they can influence and put to the side what’s out of their control. If you are being told “no new hires,” and this is coming from somewhere you have no influence, then get it off the list. Focus your team’s attention on the “can-do” elements.

3. Toward the end of December, before the holiday break, bring the team back together again. Do a fun teambuilding activity. One I did with a client last year that was successful was to have each person talk about what they would “gift” to the team if they could. Make “new hires” or “more time” off limits and have people think openly about other sorts of gifts. With one of my clients when we did this, a team member with an amazing singing voice “gifted” the team with a holiday song. All eyes were teary by the end. This is to simply get the team to engage on something non-work related and remind them they like and enjoy each other.

4. Right after the first of the year (even Jan 3 or 4), get a meeting on the calendar to review the goals, discuss the obstacles and talk about specifically what the team needs to do to be successful. Review alternatives together about what you can do – and the pros and cons of each option. Set a clear implementation plan – who, what, when, how much etc. so the team has a working plan starting right at the beginning of the year. Determine what you need to stop doing, or what needs to be put on hold for a bit given the reduced staff. This meeting should be between 2.5-3 hours and preferably in person to create clear and specific plans.

This won’t fix all of what your team needs of course. But hopefully it will get them working together and focused on the next steps they can take come 2023.

Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry, in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).

She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.

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