The Termination Decision & Conversation

If the improvement plan does not close the gap, the system reaches its hardest step. Done with discipline and dignity, a termination is a clean resolution of a mismatch both sides could see coming. This part covers who decides, the legal gate, the conversation itself, and the real differences between ending an employee's role and ending a contractor's engagement.

The manager recommends; the manager does not act alone. The decision is calibrated with the skip-level or leadership and gated by people/HR and, for anything non-trivial, by legal and finance. The inputs are the improvement-plan record, the evidence log, the calibration, and a confirmation that due process — notice, a fair window, documentation — was actually followed.

The legal and HR gate exists to catch things a manager will not think of: protected leave, visa or immigration sponsorship, notice-period obligations that vary by country and contract and tenure (international contracts often require more notice than a local minimum), and jurisdiction-specific rules. Never assume the notice period; confirm the real figure with people ops for the specific person. This is also where the backfill decision is made, so recruiting can start the moment the exit is confirmed.

Keep it short — ten to fifteen minutes — and structured:

1. State the decision up front, plainly. "I wanted to let you know we've decided to end your role, and today is your last day." Do not bury it or open with small talk that the person will later remember as cruel.
2. One clear reason, no debate. Reference the documented gap at a high level. This is a notification of a decision already made, not a reopening of it.
3. The logistics. Last day or notice end, final pay, benefits, equipment return, access, and who they will hear from next.
4. Dignity and thanks. Acknowledge specific contributions, offer a clean handoff, and — where sincere — offer to stay in touch or provide a reference.
5. Hand to people ops for the paperwork.

Do: be direct, calm, and brief; have people/HR present or immediately available; put it in writing right after; keep the person's dignity intact. Don't: surprise them, argue, over-explain, make it about personality, promise what you can't deliver, or do it over chat when a call is possible. If the person is blindsided, the failure happened weeks ago in the feedback, not in this room.

The instrument and the mechanics differ, and getting them wrong creates real problems. An employee termination runs through HR and payroll. A contractor engagement ends by terminating the contract per its notice clause — often a formal written notice with a stated final service date — and loops in finance and vendor-contracts rather than payroll.

A contractor termination that works cleanly: the manager sends a formal notice email stating the decision, the contract's notice period, and the final service date, and asks for confirmation of receipt; the contractor confirms in writing; the manager forwards the notice to finance and legal, who route it to people ops and the contract system for offboarding; people ops schedules the termination in the HRIS effective the final date, which triggers access, benefits, and equipment offboarding.

For an employee, severance follows policy and people ops owns the calculation. For a contractor, a goodwill payment is not payroll — it is a decided amount, documented in a formal letter, that the contractor adds to their next invoice and accounts payable processes in the normal cycle, with people and AP copied for an audit trail. The mechanics matter because paying a contractor through the wrong channel creates tax and compliance headaches. Keep compensation numbers out of the termination meeting itself where possible; deliver them in writing through people and finance. The reason for a goodwill payment is the first principle of this whole half: end things with dignity, in a way you'd be comfortable having read back to you.