Develop a list of criteria for layoffs and rank the title examiners from first to go to last to go. Choose the employee to be terminated and explain why. Explain the process in which you terminate the employee.
Situation
The Stanton Tile Insurance Company was founded in 1964 by Harvey Stanton to sell title insurance policies to buyers of real estate. The company works closely with a group of about 35 lawyers who, although they do not actually buy the title insurance policies, encourage their clients (the property purchasers) to do so. When the company was originally established, Mr. Stanton was its only employee. As sales increased, new employees were hired, and now 23 individuals are working in various capacities for the firm. Mr. Stanton has always followed the policy of making all major decisions himself. This includes making all personnel decisions such as determining who should be hired and how much they should be paid.
Five of the employees work primarily on examining titles at local government offices. In recent weeks, Harvey has noticed that the workload of these five employees has declined considerably. In part this is due to the recent election of three "no-growth" candidates to the city council. In addition, a competing firm has recently opened an office in town and is successfully taking business away. Harvey has reluctantly decided that he must terminate the employment of one of the title examiners. He cannot simply transfer one of them to a new position. His only question is, which one?
A summary of Harvey's evaluation of each title examiner is in Exhibit 1; a profile of each of the five title examiners appears below:
Exhibit 1: Harvey's Evaluation of Individual Job Performance for Title Examiners for Last Year