If you have a loose attendance policy, you should measure the worker's productivity and hold him to it. If you must layoff someone for an unlawful reason or a stupid one, then follow the method for high-risk terminations. Make clear the problem or how the jobholder violated firm policy. The first step you should take when dimissing workers is to build your case. To do this, you will need to coin an at will employee dismissal notification that details the reason for layoff and the effective date of layoff. For high risk separations (where the employee will sue and you'll lose), you never "officially" sack the worker, so you don't need a memorandum. If you take the time to collect this information before you terminate a worker, it will make the lay off go more smoothly and prevent legal problems later. First, when you're sacking for gross misbehavior, you must terminate the day after the 3-day suspension whether this is Friday or not.

Employee investigations before dismissal should be a team effort among supervisors. First, recording violations of firm policy tells the workforce you mean firm. Give the worker his final paycheck and standard severance check and say thank you for his contributions to the company. Don't e-mail (or fax her) the firing documents until you have told her she's dismissed. Lastly, if you're serious about winning the appeal, you should hire a legal counselor. The written reprimand notice could be just what the employee wants to correct the circumstance. A problem worker who continues with bad behavior will almost never just go away. For example, the supervisor may think the employee has some insights into the organization's declining esprit de corps and can aid you devise a question to get this information.