Worker Rights in Layoff: Know What They Are Before You Terminate. Don't delegate the phone calls or meetings to a low-level employee or the employee's replacement. A sample notification of disobedience helps set up a formal, unemotional tone when dealing with bad employees. For insubordination, you investigate the incident. And you must document whether the difficult employee is making any effort to improve the quality and quantity of their work.

Document the effects this behavior has on the small business. In addition, the standards set forth by your exit interview policy will prevent you from say anything the employee can hold against you later. Despite what you may think, you can't use employee termination to rid yourself of a jobholder with an alcohol problem. And it is important to dismiss this worker. It's a good idea for all employers to have standard lay off methods in place. After you have communicated to the worker the firing, ask the jobholder if he or she has any questions. Another way to help the dismissal is to aid the jobholder in any future endeavors he or she may have. Either offer the employee his job back or give him a settlement in return for his assurance he won't take litigation. As we've discussed before, you can be in court and lose the case even when you have a detailed legitimate reason for the termination. Although the basics of employee separation may remain the same for years, labor laws do have a tendency to change. Terminating a worker for sexual harassment is not as easy as one might think.