A terminated worker has the potential for doing all sorts of malicious acts. In this case, you should treat this as a high-risk dismissal to cut your costs (more about this in Chapter 4). Employee termination Missteps and Obstacles. A good sample layoff memorandum for attitude should include several basic features. Untrained employees will fail to produce acceptable results. However, if you believe the jobholder's performance can be altered, counseling workers is an intermediate step before sacking. Another early warning sign of employee gross misconduct is an unwillingness or general reluctance to change.

It should also spell out any other applicable terms, such as whether the employee is eligible for future employment or a noncompete clause. As you would expect, the personnel you're laying off will be "on edge." You'll scare some of them. Another consideration would be the customers or clients the terminated employee may have dealt with. For example, you have 10 people in your organization and your manager tells you must make a 20% cut. Employers do not want to leave any doubt about why they are separating a jobholder. In addition, you won't worry about a improper termination suit blind-siding you and costing you and your small company a bundle. This can leave you vulnerable for a lawsuit. Tactful language and providing a way of leaving the business with dignity in front of other workforce are conditions for making the layoff method less painful for everyone involved.