I recently watched the viral video of former Cloudflare employee Brittany Pietsch being terminated. The experience was like driving by a car crash on the highway—I just couldn’t stop watching.
If you haven’t seen the video, take a look. You can decide whether recording someone without someone’s permission is the right thing to do. That’s not up for debate here.
Here’s what I’d like you to think about:
What if you were being fired, and this happened to you?
What if your company was the subject of this video?
Key Takeaways:
- Supervisors and managers should be the ones conducting employee terminations—not HR.
- Firing someone is personal. Having people you’ve never met terminate you, ala George Clooney in the movie Up in the Air is cruel and unusual punishment.
- An employee being let go for poor performance should never be surprised by this information.
- When terminating an employee, act like someone is watching your performance.
- Transparency goes a long way when terminating someone. Leaving people to wonder and ruminate for the rest of their lives will erode your employee brand as people talk to others.
- Former employees could one day become potential customers. Treating people humanely on the way out the door may just earn you a customer for life.
- Managers should be trained on how to hire right (to avoid unnecessary terminations) and how to transition employees out of the organization appropriately.
- Employees should be permitted to speak with the person above their boss if their manager is unable to provide the employee with the answers they seek.
There’s a lot more to letting employees go than saying, “You’re fired!” which is why I devote an entire chapter to this topic in my book, Suddenly in Charge: Managing Up, Managing Down, Succeeding All Around.
Hmmm…maybe I should send a copy of my book to the CEO of Cloudflare!
