• Who should tell an employee that he or she is being terminated? There's no shortage of horror stories when it comes to termination. One employee was fired on Take Our Daughters to Work Day—he and his daughter were escorted out of the building.42 Another employee was ordered to fire his own father, only to be fired himself a few weeks later.43 And still another employee returned from his 2-week honeymoon to find a FedEx envelope waiting at his home telling him his job had been eliminated days earlier.44 Are these extreme stories? Absolutely. Are they unusual?

Mot really.

The quality of treatment an employee receives at termination is the single most important factor determining whether that employee considers filing a wrongful discharge suit against his or her employer—nearly twice as important as any other factor, including the quality of treatment the employee received during their organizational tenure.45 In other words, the way the termination interview is handled is critical. Telling an employee that he or she has been terminated is never going to be easy. However, the news can be communicated in humane ways that preserve the employee's dignity.

Many organizations now recognize how important it is that managers know how to give employees the bad news and offer training programs that teach managers how to terminate employees