Employment Breakfast: Employee Terminations - Lowering Your Legal Risk

Employee terminations are among the most stressful of events, whether they are done by supervisors a few times in a career, or by human resources pros on a regular basis. They of course take a major toll on the terminated employee, and probably his or her family. They represent the loss of a significant investment in an employee. They frequently mean there has been a shared failure to make an employment relationship successful. 

Terminations also create significant legal risk for your organization. Employment at will, while it has contributed to a dynamic economic by fostering the free movement of labor to where it is most valued, is no longer of much force. Almost every employee is or can quickly claim to be in a protected class. Courts are increasingly reluctant to grant summary judgment in discrimination cases. As a result, every termination is a potential jury trial. 

Very few terminations are risk-free, but there’s a lot you can do to reduce the risk associated with them. At our final regularly scheduled program for this year, you’ll learn about some key approaches to laying the foundation for lower risk terminations – what to document, when to document, how to manage the termination process, the importance of giving the terminated employee a sense of control, and other strategies to reduce the likelihood that a termination will result in a claim. 

While we certainly prefer to see you in person, we understand that travel and scheduling issues sometimes make attendance difficult. Therefore, all of our breakfast programs will be available for participation by web and teleconference.