Ask Me Help Desk - How do I force an employee to quit

How do I force an employee to quit

We have a secretary at my work place. I can't stand her because she has a terrible attitude problem. I have tried being patient but she is just incorrigible! She is resentful, bitter, grumbles a lot and makes unreasonable complaints, works slowly and her social skills are zero. All other employees can't stand her. She does her work inappropriately. I wish I could fire her straight but I cant. I don't want to be seen as a mean boss who fired the secretary. I have tolerated her enough! How do I force her to resign? Someone help me please!

You don't. Be a boss and do what is best for your company. You CAN just fire her assuming she is an employee at will.

To do it right, write her up for her attitude, poor or slow work, anything that bothers you. In the counselling detail clear and consise goals she must achieve and if she fails to respond, show her the door.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lilthechic

i have tolerated her enough! how do i force her to resign? someone help me please!

Hello lil:

You want to force her to quit, but you don't want to be seen as a mean boss... Lady, ANYTHING you do to force her to quit is being MEAN.

As a matter of fact, you can fire her legally for NO reason whatsoever... But, if you do things to FORCE her, you probably make yourself and your company vulnerable to a lawsuit.

Why can't you just be honest and straightforward?? I would HATE to work for you.

excon

Firing unqualified employees is a big part of "being the boss". If you are more concerned with people liking you than you are with running the business properly then you are the one who is not good at her job.

Just do what needs to be done. But do it properly and respectfully.

By worrying about what she will think of you for firing her you are most probably getting your other employees upset for keeping her.
Do yourself and your employees a favor and fire her.

Write her up and counsel her...
PAPER TRAIL!
It works... its legal... no concern for lawsuits, if done properly.

1 last thing, you're the BOSS, no one likes you...
Your constant kindness will be mistaken as weakness. Play it straight and do your job for the benefit of your business.

You perhaps should quit, since obviously you are not a good boss, A good boss watches out for their people, all of them, they write up bad people, and fire the ones they have to.

If you can't fire people, you don't need to be a boss.

I actually hate my job because the bosses fire the good people or make work intolerable for them and praise the ones that don't work at all. Like this one girl goes outside and takes 10 minute smoke breaks EVERY 40 minutes and stands around doing nothing when she is on the floor.
Its stupid to risk losing good workers over bad workers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by N0help4u

I actually hate my job because the bosses fire the good people or make work intolerable for them and praise the ones that don't work at all. Like this one girl goes outside and takes 10 minute smoke breaks EVERY 40 minutes and stands around doing nothing when she is on the floor.
Its stupid to risk losing good workers over bad workers.

Every job is like that...
I like it when the praise the lazy bums for doing their work and those who work and go the extra mile all they get is silence.

Yeah my son worked where I work and he ended up quiting cause the guy he worked with
In the dish room was harassing him and making him do all the work. The bosses would walk by and tell my son his productivity was zero when he was doing his work and the other guys work.

You can't just force an employee to quit without any reasons. If he or she is incompetent, you must first inform her in writing and give her the chance to defend herself before taking any drastic actions.

The toughest part of being a boss is to fire people. But also as boss we have an responsibility to develop people. If you are not going to tell her what her deficiencies are how do you expect her to solve them. Try corrective action programme. First stop thinking that you want to fire her. Give her a letter explaining where her behaviour or performance is deficient, what she needs to do to improve , what the organization will do for her(training) and time farme given to her to show progress. If still same problems exist then you are fire her.
But be sure you deal with her fairly not on your predisposition to fire her immediately.

Quote:

Originally Posted by felgar

You can't just force an employee to quit without any reasons. If he or she is incompetent, you must first inform her in writing and give her the chance to defend herself before taking any drastic actions.

I don't know where you are from but most if not all states in the USA are at will employment now and can fire for absolutely no reason. BUT if the employee feels it falls under the discrimination guidelines or was totally wrong then they can sue.
If this person is as bad as the OP says then it does sound like they have good cause to fire.

U need tomake her life a misery so she quits
Give her work after work making sure its really hard. Eventually shell quit. U can't get into trouble for giving your workers work. Have you seen it on TV when somebody wants 2 get rid of a certain someone, they sabotage, making the other persons life really hard. They always sucseed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by messiable

u need tomake her life a misery so she quits
give her work after work making sure its really hard. eventually shell quit. u can't get into trouble for giving your workers work. have yuo seen it on tv when somebody wants 2 get rid of a certain someone, they sabotage, making the other persons life really hard. they always sucseed.

Actually, it IS illegal. Its called harassment and it's a great way to get sued.

Sorry your right. Now that I think about it what I said probably sounds evil. By the way I agree with Krazi, he's good

Quote:

Originally Posted by messiable

u need tomake her life a misery so she quits
give her work after work making sure its really hard. eventually shell quit. u can't get into trouble for giving your workers work. have yuo seen it on tv when somebody wants 2 get rid of a certain someone, they sabotage, making the other persons life really hard. they always sucseed.

Come on man if you actually read on you would know that I apolagised. And that isn't text talk, just a few miss spelt words which I didn't have time to correct in my haste to help the man with the problem

It is very passive aggressive to try and make an employee quit rather than firing them. If there are productivity reasons to fire her, then you should have no reason not to address the problem directly and give her a warning. If things don't improve, then let her go. I would hate to work for someone that didn't give me any warnings, but instead tried to passive-aggressively try to make me quit. Do YOUR job.

Forcing her to quit would make it easy on you, but you and I both know that you don't handle personnel issues that way.

If you truly have problems with her attitude and bad work habits, then you need to do your job and sit her down and talk to her.

If she truly has problems then you need to address them... that's what you are getting paid for.

Just beware that your butt could be on the carpet if your complaints with her are unfounded. Sometimes personalities just clash, but that isn't a reason to get rid of someone.

I would have to agree with Krazi. I would start with the paper trail first off. It's a long and tedious process but if you want to filter out your problem employees that's the only way to do it.

I'm a new manager myself, but my boss has helped me every step of the way. I went into a hornet's nest of a situation where the cook was made to believe by the former kitchen manager that she was going to get the job and had her doing all the managerial tasks, hiring, ordering and everything else. She did not have the credentials for the job and was told by the administrator that it was not an option for her. When I got there it was very difficult and a lot of hard feelings were abound. I just stepped back and let things unfold. Made small changes, but mostly just watched and got the feel for the crew.

Almost a year later I've cut one dead weight employee and managed to get the other two to leave because they never had the skills for the job in the first place. I started with work plans that were very detailed, but didn't expect more than what I was capable of. I did every job in the kitchen, including wash dishes for weeks on end to prove that not only I could do the job, but to set the standards for those jobs.

When I had come on the scene they had been cooking out of a box. The food was deplorable. The first cook quit after taking a 10 day vacation, claiming I pushed her out by expecting too much of her when I put her on the work plan. The second quit when I told him that I had to take him off the weekend shift to monitor his production quality. It wasn't that hard at all. I was fair and gave them every opportunity to improve. They were use to doing whatever they wanted because the former manager was burned out and didn't care. Sorry, opening a can of Cambell's soup, steaming meat and eggs for my residents will never happen again.

I'm not there to make friends. I don't go out with or face book anyone at work. I keep it separate for my own sanity. I had to get some skill in that kitchen and I've succeeded in that, whether people think well of the way I did it is not important. As a manager you have to accept the fact that you will never be thought well of if you're actually doing the job you should be. At the end of the day all that matters is if I know I'm doing a good job and my boss thinks I'm doing a good job. I give my employees time off when they want and cover their hours. I hold them accountable for their mistakes. If they admit to them and learn from them, then that's all I ask for! It's more important as a manager that you also admit to mistakes and make sure your employees see you call yourself out on them and then show you can make improvements yourself. That's called leading by example! It's the employee that will never admit to making mistakes and blames everything on others that holds the crew back.

I look at my job now as still in the filtering stage, not finished yet. :)