Employers Should Follow Steps When Firing

Before giving someone their walking papers, employers must follow the right steps, or they may walk right into a courtroom battle.

Arkansas is in a minority of states where employers need no reason to fire an employee. Most states make employers give a cause for dismissal. But even in Arkansas, many former employees end up in court, fighting what they feel was a wrongful termination.

Arkansas is an employment-at-will state. Federal employment laws specifically state that an employment-at-will doctrine means that “the reason for terminating an employee does not matter, even if the reason was unfair.”

An employee can be discharged for any reason other than an employer violating public policy or the employee’s constitutional rights. Nevertheless, in many instances, it is advisable to be as thorough in firing an employee as it is in hiring one.

“Absent a violation of a state or federal law, you can terminate an employment at will,” said one Fayetteville lawyer. “No lawyer at my firm would ever take a case otherwise because it would be a waste of time. You can fire the best man on the premises. It’s your choice.”

Is it greatly to the advantage of an employer when firing an employee if there was no contract between them. But finding employees for executive positions would be tough without giving them a security blanket such as a contract.

But even without a contract, there can be other circumstances in whiach a terminated employee can rightfully carry out litigation.

Bob Still, a partner in the Bassett Law Firm in Fayetteville, said an employer must be careful when giving a reason for termination.

“You have to be careful of giving a feigned reason,” Still said. “But there’s nothing illegal for saying, ‘I had no reason.’ You work at the leisure of your employer.”

However, employers are bound by a contract unless the contract has been breached.

“You certainly need to document the reason for termination,” Still warned. “Put what you have in his or her personnel file and have the employer sign off on it at the exit interview.”

Still also said that while employee handbooks are a good idea for lining out a company’s policies, in Arkansas they can be construed as a contract, depending on their content.

Employee handbooks “create other conditions why you can be fired,” Still said. “You have to be careful and spell out in the handbook that this is not a contract.”

Some disgruntled former employees will find a way to get a shot at their former employers in court. As Still said, “Anybody can go to court for anything.”

But taking necessary precautions limits the credibility of a wrongful-termination case.

A spokesman for one of Arkansas’ Fortune 500 companies would not disclose his company’s firing practices, but he did say, “In these litigious times, it would absolutely be important to be thorough in terminating [an employee].”

Employers should always carry out a firing in a professional manner. A temperamental firing could come back to haunt the employer. Things said during a termination conference could become part of a subsequent employee claim or lawsuit. And the termination meeting should always be documented.

Different employers choose different methods of informing employees of their termination. While the pink slip method is more myth than fact, there are some strange ways to inform employees that their services are no longer needed.

In June, InaCom Corp. of Omaha, Neb., once the world’s largest computer dealer, sent an e-mail to most of its 5,100 employees, directing them to a toll-free phone number. There, a recorded message fired them.

An absolute no-no in a termination, according to Still, is to fire an employee for filing a workers’ compensation claim or a discrimination charge.