An individual can face termination of employment, or job loss, for one of many reasons.

The most drastic termination of employment is involuntary termination, in its most severe form known as "firing" or "sacking". A less severe form is to be laid off or made redundant, which is usually not strictly related to personal performance but economic cycles or the company's need to restructure itself.

In a postmodern risk economy, such as that of the United States, a large proportion of workers will be laid off at some time in their life, and often not for reasons related to performance or ethics.

In many countries, in particular in social democracies as found in western Europe, firing an employee is expensive and risky in that firings require extensive documentation (in the event of a wrongful-termination lawsuit), and because fired employees may sue their former employers, disclose trade secrets to competitors, expose illegal practices or become extremely violent. Finally, in the United States, unemployment benefits are financed by companies, and a firm's unemployment costs increase with each worker laid off or fired. Depending on the circumstances and company policy, a fired employee may or may not be entitled to a severance package or unemployment benefits.

Types of termination

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Involuntary termination

The classic definition of terminating someone's employment is being fired, or in technical terms involuntary termination. In the workplace, an employee may be fired for many reasons:

• Work performance that fails to meet a given standard, especially over a period of time.
• Chronic absence.
• Constant or gross insubordination, or other inability to properly relate (i.e., get along) with co-workers and/or customers.
• Inappropriate conduct or misconduct.
• Engaging in illegal activities on the job (such as embezzlement).
• Any other failing as deemed appropriate by a workplace manager or supervisor.

In the United States, most states have adopted the at-will employment contract that allows the employer to dismiss employees without having to provide any of the reasons listed above.

In some cases, an employee's off-the-job behavior could result in his losing his/her job (e.g., a drunk driving arrest, especially if the employee's principal responsibilities require driving). At some businesses, a security officer may escort a "fired" employee from the workplace to the parking lot upon his/her dismissal.

Synonyms for being "fired" include sacked, released, discharged, and dismissed, and coloquially canned or axed. One euphemism for being terminated is being let go.

Effects of termination

Rarely is a decision to fire an employee arrived at lightly, or is it as dramatic as portrayed on television (such as with the WWE, when Vince McMahon "fires" an employee as part of a storyline) or in the movies.

Depending on the jurisdiction, a supervisor and/or workplace manager must keep extensive documentation of employees — including records of disciplinary action, evaluations, attendance records, and correspondence from supervisors, co-workers and customers. Often, these items can be used in determining whether to terminate an employee considered for such an action. In some cases, certain disciplinary records, evaluations and relevant information must be expunged from the employee's file after a specified time period.

Often, an involuntary termination is part of a "progressive step" process, meaning the employee will have been warned for his/her work performance and/or conduct and given an opportunity to improve before more severe measures are taken. However, immediate termination may be enacted for severe cases, such as fighting, on-the-job sexual harassment or other zero tolerance offenses. Often, workplace managers require giving an employee due process, giving the worker a chance to show why he/she should be allowed to keep his/her job.

In addition to the risks and resulting consequences involved with involuntary terminations, there is the matter of unemployment benefits. In the United States, these benefits are financed by companies; a firm's unemployment costs increase with each worker laid off or fired. Therefore, more common are de facto firings, which are classified as "voluntary" termination.

To be fired (or any of its synonyms), as opposed to being laid off, is generally thought to be dishonorable and a sign of failure. In some cases, it may hinder the now job-seeker's chances of finding new employment, particularly if he/she has been fired several times. However, in today's society, getting fired is also highly common. Most Americans will be fired at some time in their life, and not always because of any moral failing or lack of a work ethic.

Summary termination

In cases of extreme gross misconduct, an employer may pursue summary dismissal or instant dismissal, where an employee is dismissed on the spot. Under UK law, employers are not required to give notice for such terminations, so long as there is just cause.

Discriminatory and retalitory termination

In some cases, the firing of an employee is a discriminatory act. Although an employer may often claim the dismissal was for "just cause," these discriminatory acts are often because of the employee's physical or mental disability, or perhaps his/her age, race, gender, HIV status or sexual orientation. Other unjust firings may result from a workplace manager or supervisor wanting to retaliate against an employee. Often, this is because the worker reported wrongdoing (often, but not always sexual harassment or other misconduct) on the part of the supervisor. Such terminations are usually illegal. Many successful lawsuits have resulted from discriminatory or retalitory termination.

Discriminatory or retalitory termination by a supervisor can take the form of administrative process. In this form the rules of the instituton are used as the basis for termination. For example, if a place of employment has a rule that prohibits personal phone calls, receiving or making personal calls can be the grounds for termination even though it may be a common practice within the organzation.

Forced resignations

In addition to the risks and costs of firing an employee, firing a high-profile individual such as a school superintendent, an executive, or a public official often leads to rumor and factionalism; people who sympathized with the fired employee will be drawn against the person responsible for one's termination.

To avoid this, and to allow the dismissed employee to "save face" in a more "graceful" exit, the employer will often ask the employee to resign "voluntarily" from his or her position. If the employee chooses not to resign, the processes necessary to fire him or her will be pursued, and the employee will usually be fired. The resignation thus makes it unclear whether the resignation was forced or voluntary, and this opaqueness benefits both parties; for instance, the "fired" employee is more easily able to seek new employment in his/her given field.

High-profile individuals, when forced to resign from a job, will often claim that they resigned over "creative differences" or "to spend more time with their family". However, even these reasons can create rumors.

Changes of conditions

Firms that wish for an employee to exit of his or her own accord, but do not wish to pursue firing or forced resignation, may degrade the employee's working conditions, hoping that he or she will leave "voluntarily". The employee may be moved to a different geographical location, assigned to an undesirable shift, given too few hours if part time, demoted (or relegated to a menial task), or assigned to work in uncomfortable conditions. Other forms of manipulation may be used, such as being unfairly hostile to the employee, and punishing him or her for things that are deliberately overlooked with other employees.

Such tactics may amount to constructive dismissal, which is illegal in some jurisdictions.

Layoffs and furloughs

Finally, termination of employment can happen as a result of layoffs, also known as "downsizing", "reduction in force", or "redundancy", which are not firings. A laid-off employee's job is terminated and not re-filled, because the company wishes to reduce its size or operations, not for performance-related reasons. In rare cases, laid-off employees are re-hired by their respective companies, though by this time they have usually found new jobs.

If a company is in the process of either economic troubles and/or recent previous layoffs and they ask you to "cross-train" someone to fill in your duties "in case you are gone," chances are that a lay off process may proceed shortly.

Organizational studies and human resource management | Employment

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