How to Give Verbal Warnings BEFORE You’re Forced to Fire Someone
Does the thought of firing someone fill you with trepidation?
When faced with terminating an employee, you probably think, “Why can’t they just use common sense and get it right? I shouldn’t be having to have this conversation!”
But this difficult discussion doesn’t always have to end in a termination. Giving verbal warnings to employees is a pre-firing step you can take that, if done right, might even prevent the need to let someone go.
Yet, so many entrepreneurial leaders still feel hesitant about having those, too. So in this episode of Pleasurable Profits, you’ll learn a simple way to have a verbal warning conversation before things even have a chance to get to the termination stage. I’ll teach you not only how to approach verbal warnings, but also how to protect your business in the process.
5:56 - A verbal warning mistake too many people make
7:03 - Why following a step-by-step process to fire someone protects you
8:09 - The necessary mindset for giving a verbal warning to an employee
9:40 - A two-step example of how to proceed with a verbal warning conversation
14:14 - How you should end the discussion (and why you need to document it)
Find me on Instagram or LinkedIn or email me at hello@lesliedlyons.com.
As Mentioned In How to Give Verbal Warnings BEFORE You’re Forced to Fire Someone
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Transcript for How to Give Verbal Warnings BEFORE You’re Forced to Fire Someone
Hey boss, I am Leslie Lyons, your embodied leadership and sales coach, and this is Pleasurable Profits. This podcast is ideal for owners and leaders of tattoo shops, permanent makeup studios, cannabis businesses, movement studios, sex toy shops, and other industries that are too often left out of the leadership conversation. If you’re looking for a woo meets strategy approach to defining your strengths and values, designing a business that supports you, and creating a soul-driven, and of course, pleasurable plan for profitability, then let’s get started.
Hey, party people. It's Leslie, your embodied sales and leadership coach. How're you doing? I'm relaxing. It's pretty late here. It's about 10 o'clock at night and so this will definitely be a short podcast because homegirl got a Pilates private lesson at 7:30 AM.
Look, ya'll, can we just talk for a second about me trying to get my body moving since I stopped pole dancing a couple of years ago? I am the stiffest that I've ever been. I mean, it is difficult to stand, to sit. I'm feeling all types of aches and pains. Yeah, I just turned 50 but I'm like, “Child, I got to get back to moving my body.”
So I have been doing burlesque, and I did burlesque for almost a year again. I think it was almost a year, or pretty close to it. Then I stopped doing burlesque because my business has grown to such a point now that Sunday evenings work really well for my clients to meet.
In order to serve them, I had to add a couple more time slots to train people, mentor people, coach, and all the fun things on Sunday so I stopped taking my burlesque class but I'm going to get back because also, here in Chicago, the winter sucks. I know when this comes out, it'll be March so it'll be spring, but right now, it sucks. Traveling back and forth, all the excuses.
Needless to say, it's cold, I'm stiff, I got to do something. I was like, “Why don't I try Pilates?” Because I need something low-impact because I am overweight and my joints can't take me jumping up and down all over. I'm not going to blow my knees out for no-d*mn-body. So I was like, “What can I do that is low impact but effective?” I've heard so many great things about Pilates, especially the reformer, being able to help people with injuries and that sort of thing.
I'm taking my first class tomorrow. But here's the deal. She only had a 7:30 AM open for a private lesson. Don't she know I got showgirl hours? Don't she frickin know that? I don't even get up until nine o'clock in the morning. You expect me to be showered, ready to go, worked out all by 7:30 in the morning? No, no, we'll see how it goes. I'll let y'all know.
But anywho, let's get to today's topic. Remember, we're talking about how to navigate difficult conversations. I thought I'd take you to the beginning. Last week, I talked about the worst-case scenario when you need to fire someone. But there are so many little bumps along the road when it comes to leading people that difficult conversations don't always have to end up in terminations.
However, it still brings up trepidation for a lot of accidental leaders. It's like, “Oh my gosh, why am I even having to have these conversations?” Some of this stuff should just be common sense, employees should just get it. They should just know. As my dear mother used to always say, common sense ain't common. We gotta be clear, y'all. We got to be clear.
One of the first steps that I do believe is due to anybody when there is a performance issue is that you issue a verbal warning. That is what this episode is about: how to do a proper verbal warning. Because I've seen this go bad. I've seen it go bad and employees be confused and leaders be upset. I was like, “Why don't I just give a couple of pointers around that?”
When you have someone on your team who is not living up to expectations, the first thing is it starts with how you onboard people. That's probably where I should have started. I'll probably do an episode on that too, just about how you onboard people, how you hire people, making sure that they have a good understanding of what it looks like to win working for me. That's a real big priority for me.
I want people to always know what success looks like, what it looks like to win. Once you clear that out, and you guys have agreement on, “This is where we're going, this is the vision, these are our values, this is what it looks like to win,” and you're moving forward and somehow that employee does not keep their part of the agreement, enter a verbal warning.
How do people mess up verbal warnings? The big thing, and this is really what I want to help you not to do, is they don't make it clear that it's a verbal warning. They call the employee in, they tell them about the performance, but they don't make it clear that this is a performance improvement conversation.
When you don't make that clear, even though you're talking about the performance, I know you're like, “What the hell else could it be? I'm telling you that you didn't do X, Y, and Z. I'm telling you that last night when you left the shop, you didn't put the alarm on. That's the security situation.” I'm telling you, they have to know that this is a performance-related conversation.
People don't always know. People think it was casual. They think it was just something that you're mentioning, but it's not really that serious. It's on you as the leader to make it clear that you are serious about this and that this is problematic. I truly believe, even though most states are at-will states, which basically means that you can fire people for any reason, you don't need to go through the steps to do it, but the steps are there to protect you.
We live in a very litigious society, and by God's grace, I've never been sued and I'm praying that he keeps me until I fully retire. But I know so many people who over the years have gotten into litigious situations with employees, with clients, all sorts of things, so you want to protect yourself because you never know who's going to go batsh*t crazy and try to drag you to court.
The steps are there in case you do end up in court, you can show that there was goodwill there and that things were handled in a proper manner. When you bring someone in for a verbal warning, it is very clear that this is a verbal warning. You say this is a verbal warning. But before you start out, I don't start out those conversations which are different than the conversation we had last week about firing people where it’s short and sweet.
A developmental conversation is longer, and it should be because you're really trying to see how you can support this person, how you can turn things around if possible. You really want to hear their heart. You really want to know, is it a training issue? Is there something you can do to support them? That should be your motive, your energy when you go into that conversation.
The focus isn't on your energy, isn't on “I need to correct this person. I need to fix this person.” The leadership mindset is “I need to support this person if possible.” You're going to get sick of me talking about leadership mindset. But so much goes into how you think about leadership is how you lead. It's inevitable. It's like I have to talk to you about how you need to think about these situations so that you can show up with clean energy.
When I go in knowing that it's not my goal to fix this person, I'm not trying to reprimand a person, these aren't children, they're adults, I am trying to see if I can support you if possible, I'm going to ask you questions about the situation. Let's use the tattoo shop example where the artist left out of the studio, out of the shop without putting on the alarm.
I would bring that employee in and basically say, “Hey, Chuck, I'm bringing you in to talk to you about the alarm situation. When I came in today, I noticed that the alarm was not on. You closed last night, correct?” Always start with a question, a question that has a very obvious easy answer, getting them to take some ownership over just the fact of what happened in the situation.
Once they're like, “Yeah, I did close,” “Okay. I just want to ask what happened? What got in the way that the alarm didn't get turned on?” You might be surprised. You might find out that he did put the alarm on, but there's actually something going on with the alarm system that it didn't register. It could be a malfunction or that people have been having problems arming the system. You could find out things so don't assume.
If you're taking notes, don't assume that the thing you're bringing them in to reprimand them about you have all the information. If you go within this with the mindset of “I'm trying to support this person if possible,” it'll make you more open to asking questions to get information.
Let's say in this case, there wasn't any system malfunction, they truly forgot, and they didn't do it but this is a serious thing. I would then say, “Okay, so what do you think you need to do to ensure that this doesn't happen again?” It is not your responsibility as the leader to come up with solutions to behavior problems. I know you're thinking, “What do you mean?”
At this stage in the disciplinary process, you're again, trying to engage them, conversation, understand, support, not tell them what to do. Oftentimes, when we tell employees what to do in this stage of the process, it really robs them of ownership over the solution. I always ask my team when something doesn't work out, “What do you think you need to do to keep this from happening again?”
Because I'm not coming up with it. You need to think about it because I might tell you what works for me, but what if that's not your learning style? What if that doesn't fit with just how you flow and how you do things? Nobody knows you better than you. I assume that people are experts on themselves. That's the grace that I show people. You ask the question, “What do you think you need to do to ensure this doesn't happen again?”
Then depending upon the answer, you might have to give some direction, but prayerfully no, prayerfully the person will come up with some good solutions. All you're doing at that point is if you agree with the solution that they gave, if you believe it's a viable solution, you guys agreed that this is how it's going to be handled going forward. Handshake, “This is how we're going to agree.”
Make sure there isn't anything else they need. Once they give you the solution to make sure it doesn't happen again, your next thing is “Is there anything else you need to feel supported around this?” Now with the alarm situation, that may not be a really good question to follow up with. But let's say it's someone who's struggling with a specific part of their job, like an administrative assistant who keeps making mistakes on spreadsheets.
Is there anything else I need to do to support you? Do you need to take an Excel class? Do we need to send you to an Excel class? Is there anything else you feel you need to make sure this doesn't happen again? Number one, if you're taking notes, they came up with the solution so they have ownership over the solution. Number two, you're making sure that there aren't any other roadblocks or rocks in the way that could stop them from doing that easily. Is there something you could do to make that happen?
Once you've done those two things, you end the conversation by restating what they agreed to do. Restate how you will be supporting them going forward, if applicable. Then you end the conversation by saying, “I just really want to be clear. I'm glad that we came up with a solution. I believe that this will work. But I also need to be clear, though, that this is a verbal warning because of the nature of this. Are we clear on that?”
They're like, “Yes, I get it. I understand it.” “Just so you know, I'm going to summarize this conversation in writing. It will clearly state that it is a verbal warning, though. But I want to make sure that there is no misunderstanding when you walk out of the office about what you've agreed to do and also what I've agreed to do to support you. Make sense? Great.” End of the conversation.
All verbal warnings still need to be documented. That is the last point that I want to make in this regard. Because if you don't document it, guess what it turns into? He say, she say, “B*llsh*t, I don't remember you saying that. I had no clue. When did we have this conversation? We talk all the time.” Take all that drama out of it by putting it in writing.
Hopefully, if they are a great asset to your team, and they just made some mistakes, and they're committed to turning things around, this will be the first step in aiding that turnaround. If these types of things make you all itchy all over the place, like if you listen to this now and you're like, “Leslie, why do I have to lead people? Why can't people be self-managing?” Because that ain't how leadership works. But here's the good news, I have a whole crew of women, I have about 20 women that I work with right now who go through these situations all the time so you are not alone.
Coming into my space, you come into community. When these little things come up, you aren't trying to figure this sh*t out on your own. You are getting not only my wisdom, but you're getting the wisdom of some really high caliber, high earning, big staffs leaders. If you want to be a part of that, if you want to come and get that type of support, why are you still listening to this podcast? You need to be in my inbox. You need to run over to Leslie D. Lyons, message me, and say, “I'm ready to lead,” and I'll get you more information.
Next week, we're going to talk about the next step in the process which is a written warning, how to do it, what needs to be a part of it, all that fun stuff. Hopefully, you'll tune in next week in this series of how we manage difficult conversations with our employees. I'm hoping that this is beneficial to you. If it is, share it with another leader. Leave me a five-star review. Always my inbox is open for feedback. Until next week. Y'all be great. You got the plan, run with it. Grace and peace.