Shawnee Love   •  
February 3, 2011

In the HR world, Pareto’s rule applies:

80% of your time is spent on 20% of your employees

In my happy place, it is because that 20% are high performers who are demanding in their career progression and personal and professional development. In my experience, the 20% are most often problem employees that managers need help dealing with.

If you are at the stage of releasing an employee, then there are a few things to do:

• Determine if you have cause or not (more on this in future blogs),
• Prepare for the release meeting (prepare the documents, determine the appropriate notice and/or payments, plan what you will say and when, how and where you will deliver the bad news),
• Meet with the employee to deliver the news,
• Deal with the aftermath (e.g., transfer of work, dealing with emails/ calls, answering the questions of other employees while protecting the exited employee’s dignity and confidentiality, etc.

After viewing this list, do rehabilitation or reassignment look more appealing?