You never quite know what to expect when you are letting an employee go. As a human resources professional, I never go into a termination meeting without preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. When you treat people with respect and compassion (no matter what the reason for the separation is) then most of the time the individual will remain respectful even in the face of adversity. But at the end of the day, we are all humans with different behaviors, personalities, experiences, and reactions. So no matter how many times we predict human behavior accurately, there are always those times that surprise you. I’ve had my fair share of interesting termination conversations (look for a future post on that topic) but only once so far in my HR career have I gotten the chance to play a crime scene investigator.
The names in this article have been changed to protect both the innocent and the not so innocent.
Remember, all the information in this blog post is published in good faith and for general information purpose only. I am not an attorney, nor do I provide legal advice. The information provided is my personal opinion and not that of any organization, business, company, agency or other individuals. The author is not liable for any losses or damages related to actions or failure to act related to the content of this article. If you need specific legal advice, consult with an attorney who specializes in your subject matter. Any action you take upon the information you find on this website (www.hrraw.com), is strictly at your own risk.
Penny Horton | May 16, 2018
The termination conversation itself went fairly well. Mostly led by myself, as “Bob”, the manager, was fairly inexperienced in terminating individuals and he also avoided conflict as much as possible. In this case, the employee, “Sue” was being let go because she wasn’t meeting performance expectations.
At the end of every termination conversation, our process was to run through an exit checklist to make sure we had collected all company property, discussed any outstanding issues and covered all of the pertinent topics. In this instance, Bob and I completed the checklist and collected the company property Sue said she had.
The standard protocol at the end of any termination was for the manager to escort the employee out of the building while HR sent electronic notification to information technology (IT), finance, payroll and security that the terminated individual was no longer an employee. This allowed each department to take the necessary steps to process the terminated employee’s departure which included restricting her access to our systems and facilities, disabling her IT equipment, and also canceling her company credit cards. As such, I left Bob’s office and headed to mine to complete the process.
After Bob returned from escorting Sue out of the building, he called to let me know that she had been pretty vocal during her exit. She was clearly pissed off and chose to let him know about it. However, once she got to her car in the parking lot she left without further incident.
Later that day I received an email that was forwarded to me by Bob. It was a message that Sue had sent to him from her personal email account. It was clear that she was still pissed. In addition to defending her performance, she also decided to let Bob have it by verbally belittling him and berating him. In fact, the email started with “Bob, You are such an idiot!”.
Bob, who was a genuinely nice guy, was pretty offended. But, the email wasn’t threatening in any way so I instructed him to ignore it, not respond to it and alert me if he received any additional correspondence or contact from Sue. I also let him know that I would, of course, keep a copy of the email in her personnel file for future reference. As you can imagine, Sue was not going to be eligible for rehire….ever.
A couple of days went by, business as usual before I received a call from the finance department. They were in the process of going through Sue’s outstanding expense report and noticed some unusual charges that occurred the day she was terminated. In fact, the charges actually happened AFTER we had escorted Sue from the building.
These charges included what must have been some snacks from a nearby convenience store, a couple of other small purchases and then a pretty big charge ($2,000ish) at…..drum roll please,……Target.
Now I’m sure you are all wondering how the heck that was possible since Bob and I went through the exit checklist gathering company property from Sue before she exited. Well, apparently Bob didn’t realize that Sue, his employee, had 2, yes count them 2 company credit cards. One was supposed to be for travel purposes and the other was for all other purchases. So while we had gathered 1 of the credit cards, we hadn’t collected both. Oops!
For those of you who are reading this closely and have good reading comprehension, you will remember that part of the exit process was for HR (me) to send electronic notification to various departments notifying them of the employee’s departure so they could take their necessary actions. And if you remember, finance was one of those departments and they had responsibility for canceling the terminated employees credit card. So, now you are asking, why the heck were charges allowed on the credit card when it had been canceled? Come to find out the card didn’t get canceled until the following morning because EVERYONE in the finance team was attending a departmental training session that afternoon. As a result, no one received the electronic notification to cancel her card until they returned to work the next day. Eek!
So, besides obviously needing to change our process for credit card deactivation during an employee termination, we also needed to contact Sue to get our money back. Lo and behold, when Randy, our finance manager, contacted Sue she informed him that her company credit card had actually been stolen and that those charges were fraudulent. Imagine, the misfortune that has now ensued for Sue. Fired from her job and having her credit card stolen all in the same day!
Being the good steward, Randy reached out to the credit card company to alert them to the theft and dispute the charges. The credit card company began their due diligence and started inquiring with the places of business at which the charges were made.
Within a couple of days, Randy needed my assistance. Apparently, Target was able to trace the transaction and retrieved the security camera footage of the individual who made the charges. They just needed someone from our company to come look at the tapes and confirm that it wasn’t her.
So off I went to play CSI. I headed into the store, received clearance to the security office and proceeded to watch the video. What did I see? Unfortunately, it was Sue and her son carrying out lots of goodies including new bedding, toys, and even a brand new TV.
Come to find out, this wasn’t the only time Sue had inappropriately spent company money on personal items. After further investigation, we discovered instances of her paying her apartment rent with the company credit card!
In the end, the company reached an agreement with Sue for full repayment of all of the inappropriate charges (of course it was either that or press criminal charges). And, the finance team revamped its internal processes to prevent similar situations in the future.
All in all, it turned out to be a valuable lesson for the company, what I hope is a valuable lesson for Sue and made one heck of a memorable HR story!
Reality Check:
How are your company’s internal processes?
Do you have an updated exit checklist?
Are there adequate controls in place to ensure a similar situation doesn’t happen to you?
If you answered no to any of these questions, or if you need help determining if your risk is mitigated, if your processes are shored up or if your procedures are air-tight, let me know.
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