The aftermath of firing agency employees for cause

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss when you should (and shouldn’t) terminate an employee for cause.

They explain the perils of allowing emotion to impact termination decisions and how you should approach these difficult circumstances.

When an employee is terminated for cause, it can also cause agency leaders to wonder if they can trust others, so Chip and Gini explore the ramifications of that fear.

Key takeaways

* Chip Griffin: “Fundamentally dishonest people are going to be dishonest. So you can only protect yourself so much.”

* Gini Dietrich: “You can do your due diligence and still not get all of the information that you need.”

* Chip Griffin: “The most important thing is to make sure that you have systems in place that you can try to identify people who are misbehaving sooner rather than later.”

* Gini Dietrich: “This is the hardest part of our job. But you can’t take it personally.”

Related

* ALP 22: How to fire agency employees

View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: Gini, you’re fired.

Gini Dietrich: Dang it.

Chip Griffin: Right after this.

Gini Dietrich: Every week, either you quit or I get fired.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, well.

Gini Dietrich: This happens every week. I’m going to stop showing up.

Chip Griffin: Somehow we keep recording, so.

Gini Dietrich: I keep showing up. I’m going to tell Jen not to send me the link anymore.

Chip Griffin: There you go. It is what it is, you know. I got to say something to try to keep people listening, you know.

You got to capture them in that first moment when they’re watching the video or clicking on the download link and listening to it. Your car at the gym or on their bicycle or wherever they’re at. So, yeah, so, okay, I’m not actually going to fire you, but, but I did think it was a good intro to the topic that, that you came up with based on a message that you had read in the discussion forum, where there was an owner who was struggling with a recent termination and, and both what it meant for that individual termination, as well as what it means for trusting employees going forward.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I mean, without betraying any confidences, there, there was a conversation about how someone had been fired and the agency owner learned after the person was fired that he had done a lot of egregious things such as downloading contracts, using the, the agency’s time and resources to service his own clients and things like that.

And you know, I think we all struggle with people in general and you know, bad hires and what you do when you have a bad hire. And, you know, I think a lot of us tend to look, look inwardly to say, okay, where did I make the mistake? And where did I go wrong? But also sometimes people, people like pull the wool over your eyes and they’re bad people and it has nothing to do with you.

So, you know, there,