One of the most unpleasant responsibilities of any manager is to terminate an employee who is not performing. Your company is likely to have a formal performance improvement program. Despite a manager's best efforts, an employee may not be capable or unwilling to perform at the expected level.

The choice then becomes, can the employee be redeployed elsewhere in the company into a position more in line with their capabilities and career path, or must their employment with your company be terminated?

Here are ten tips on how to handle this.

1. Is the current position just a bad fit? A job assignment should maximize an employee's strengths and minimize their weaknesses. If there are weak areas not critical to an employee's assignment a manager can help. Provide helpful training. Assign tasks that can help to improve weaker areas. For example, a credit analyst must be proficient at attention to detail. A collector needs excellent communication skills. Someone assigned to either of these roles with weaknesses in those critical skills is likely to struggle and may fail. Rather than lose a potentially good employee, consider redeploying them to a more appropriate position.
2. Be prepared: Have any documentation required by your company, including information covering COBRA or other benefits available to the employee at the point of termination.
3. Have a witness with you during a termination discussion: Have someone from your HR department with you. If that is not possible, then ask the person's immediate supervisor, or another manager to attend as a witness to the conversation. That will prevent he/she said accusation later on.
4. Choose a private location where there will be no interruptions: This is an awkward experience for both you and the employee. Avoid embarrassing interruptions.
5. Choose an appropriate time: It is best to schedule your meeting at the end of the Friday workday. When you are finished the employee will not be walked out in front of their peers. That can be both unnecessarily embarrassing and demeaning.
6. Be candid and specific: If the only choice is to terminate an employee, provide them with specific reasons why. Rather than telling them, we are terminating you due to poor performance, explain it in specific terms such as: "We have had weekly discussions for the past 90 days about the need for you to organize your calendar, make xx contacts with your assigned accounts, and meet your collection targets. Unfortunately, none of those things has been accomplished."
7. Take accountability: Be sure to let the employee know this was your decision, or you agree with it if the final decision was made by someone else.
8. Do not engage in a wandering conversation: Keep your focus on the facts. The employee may bring up a host of unrelated points and complaints. The wider the conversation goes, don't let the employee put you on the defensive and prolong a pointless discussion.
9. Follow the employee to their work area and out of the building: Observe what they remove and who they talk with. If left unattended they may take sensitive files and documents or engage in harmful conversation with co-workers who may still be in the office.
10. Ensure company security: Inform all who need to know the individual is no longer an employee. Take their company identification. Update your system to prevent future access. If there are combination door locks, update the combination.