Want to know how not to fire someone? Warehousing consultant John Tracy tells this story: An employer had to fire a warehouse manager. On the day of the dismissal, the employer invited the manager to lunch and drove to a local fast food restaurant. The employer let the manager go ahead of him in line. Once the manager had his lunch in hand and had paid for it (with his own money), the employer told him he was fired—then turned and left the restaurant without him.

Perhaps it goes without saying, but this is not the best way to terminate someone's employment.

It's an inevitability of the modern workplace that as a manager, sooner or later you're going to have to fire someone. It's never going to be pleasant, and sometimes it can turn downright dangerous. But with proper documentation, advance planning, and consideration for the person being fired, termination can be a smooth and relatively painless process for both employee and employer.

It's a litigious world we live in. Virtually everything you do in the distribution center runs the risk of triggering a lawsuit these days, and firing an employee is no exception. Whether it's running afoul of a union or tripping over equal employment opportunity rules, a former employee with a grudge and an attorney can make your life complicated.

That's why it's important to remember these words: "Document, document, document," says Tracy, president and CEO of Tracy-Hayden Associates Inc., a logistics and operations consulting firm in South Orange, N.J. He advises clients to document an employee's transgressions beginning with the moment he or she has been advised that termination is being considered. Past problems shouldn't be included in those records. "Clearly, at the point when you start [the termination process], there have been enough events in the past to cause you to want to do this," Tracy notes. "But those have to go into the category of history. You have to say, forget those—today's the day we're starting."

It's okay, though, to mention past problems in an initial meeting with the employee. "I call the person in and have a 'summary meeting' where I discuss all the things that haven't been documented," says James Heaney, a principal with personnel consultants HeaneyCougar in Bethesda, Md. "I summarize where we've been in the past, and I document [that meeting]."

From that point onward, you'll need to record every transgression, from the slightest to the most blatant. And the employee needs to be informed each time he or she crosses the policy line. "When the person gets [a number of] warnings that their work is not satisfactory, termination doesn't come as a surprise. It comes as the logical outgrowth of the warnings," says consultant Ken Ackerman, president of Ackerman Associates in Columbus, Ohio.

Those warnings also cover the company's backside in case legal issues do arise. "You really need to build a credible case," Ackerman says. "You have to protect yourself."

You also must decide how many violations warrant termination. Company policy should dictate that number, but sometimes an employee's history can and should influence that decision. "Somebody once told me, three times and you're out," Tracy says. "But [what if it's] three times over 30 years? I don't know that there's any flat rule you can use, but I think the norm is what really dictates. How do my people normally perform?"

When someone is performing below the norm and may be in line for termination, look for reasons why that employee failed. "I don't think anyone wakes up in the morning and says, 'I want to go to work and do a lousy job,'" says Heaney. "The reason most people fail is because they don't know clearly what's expected of them."

Tracy agrees that firing someone constitutes an admission of failure—and it's not necessarily the employee's. "It could be that the wrong person was hired or transferred or promoted," he says. "Could be I didn't do a good job in training somebody. Could be that the company hasn't done a good job of keeping its business up and as a result, they have to lay off. They're all failures of one sort or another."

Like any business failure, a termination provides the opportunity to find out what went wrong and try to fix it. That chance first arises when firing appears likely, and you take the employee aside to talk about it. "You can say, 'Look I've noticed that you seem to have a problem doing this and this. Can we give you some more training?'" Tracy says. It's often beneficial to retrain that employee's entire group, since what is a problem for one person may also be troubling others, he adds.

If the employee responds positively to the offer, then you should reassess the need for termination. "If it's someone who's consciously trying to do a good job, and they want to be there and they like the company, it's just that they might be in the wrong position," says Rene Jones, president and chief operating officer of AHN Corp. in Burbank, Calif. "Obviously, we're going to spend more time with that person than with someone who's not doing a good job and doesn't want to be there."

How much time to invest in retraining is subjective, Jones adds. "I don't know that there's an exact time frame on it. If you have the person who wants to do well but just doesn't have the ability to perform the task you're asking, try to put them in a different type of position. If they still can't do it, you'll know within a couple of weeks."

For some employees, retraining or reassigning isn't going to work. They just don't want to be there—and so, they shouldn't be. "I see over and over horrible damage done by managers who are afraid to fire someone who should be fired," says Ackerman. "They just keep waiting for the person to quit." That inability to act, he says, makes management look weak and unwilling to resolve a bad situation.

Let's say you've done everything you can to avoid having to terminate someone and it hasn't changed the outcome—you have no choice but to let the person go. This worries many managers, not only because nobody wants to see employees suffer hardships, but also because all too often, the news has featured "disgruntled employee" stories that end tragically.

There's no way to foresee if an employee will react violently to termination. "People are so different that even when you think you know them, you don't know what makes them tick," Tracy says. "It's the old case where the kindest, most mild-mannered person just had a divorce, and you walk up and say, 'You're fired.' Who knows?"

Still, how you approach the dismissal can take the edge off the situation and lead to a smooth resolution. In addition to documentation, two things are required: calm preparedness, and a third person in the room.

Calm preparedness is necessary whether the firing has been a long time coming or whether an employee has done something that, according to company policy, calls for immediate termination. If you don't have an advance plan for handling firings, you need to develop one without delay. "You have to rehearse how you're going to proceed," Tracy says. "If you get caught in a scenario where you need to terminate on the spot or very quickly and you have to think on your feet, you're going to make mistakes." He suggests knowing roughly what you'll say, where in the building you'll talk to the employee, and how the employee will be required to collect personal items and leave the premises.

Above all, keep your cool, no matter how the employee responds. "It should never be done in anger," Ackerman advises. "If you're angry when you're firing someone, you're doing it wrong."

The presence of a third person, such as someone from human resources, can help settle a tense situation. "When it's one on one, [the employee may] start talking about other things that don't pertain to his being terminated," Jones observes. "That adds fuel to the fire, and he starts to get upset, and being human, the person doing the firing is going to get upset and yell or say something back to him. That becomes a bad situation. If you have a third person in the room, as both people begin to get off track, they can comment and say, 'You know what? That has nothing to do with the fact that we're here because your performance is not up to par.'" Another person also can ensure nothing is said that puts the company at fault from a legal standpoint, and that the employee can't twist what was said if he or she comes back with a lawyer later on, he adds.

Two final issues to consider are timing and how the (now former) employee will leave the premises. Tracy suggests terminating employees at lunch or after hours. "[That way] the employee can walk out of the place with some dignity, and at the same time not necessarily influence other employees," he says. "It affects not just the employee, [but also] anybody remaining—they have a perception of why that person is no longer there, particularly if they think the termination is without cause."

Such a perception can affect morale and undermine management's relationship with workers, Tracy adds. "Yes, people will follow what you tell them to do, but they won't do it as a team member. They'll do it as 'the boss told me so.'"

Whichever time you choose to do the firing, make it clear that the employee must leave immediately, says Jones. "Usually it's understood, but a lot of times they want to walk around. They want to tell everyone they've been fired, which is obviously interrupting the workflow. Let them know they need to leave right away—and that third, non-confrontational person can walk with them."

Walking out with the third person creates an opportunity to talk about the dismissal. "They can be a sort of shoulder for the [fired employee] to lean on," Jones says. "This walk is sort of an exit interview where the HR person can hear how they feel about the company or about this particular supervisor." If everyone who's terminated is saying the same thing, then that's a signal that the supervisor may be doing something that is preventing people from succeeding, he adds.

Firing an employee isn't pleasant or easy, and no amount of advice on how to do it is going to change that. But developing a calm, professional, and considerate approach will make sure this unpleasant task can be handled as well as possible by both sides.