After you get through the challenging, confronting and often emotionally wrought process of firing someone there tends to be a sigh of relief that "it's over."  You may just want to decompress and take a breath.  

However never forget you still need to share the news with the rest of the team as soon as possible after their co-worker's departure.  

Gather your team to share the news.  Also make sure if you have a team member who is not in that day or is out in the field to include them by giving them a call. This is part of why we recommend setting aside at least a couple of work-day hours after you let someone go to communicate with your team.

Any time you choose to let someone go from your team you are clearly speaking to who gets to be a part of the team and who doesn't - it's an incredibly important culture pivot point.

HOW you communicate and WHAT you communicate at this specific time will speak volumes  to your team about your culture.  

Done well, you can demonstrate your values, instill a sense of shared identity and reassure the rest of the team.  Done haphazardly, and your team will be left to wonder if they want to brush up their resume.

To support you in reinforcing your desired culture rather than undermining it,

‍Here’s five steps/talking points to authentically make your own...
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1. Be clear and direct. "We let X go today." (Pause and make eye contact with each individual.)
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2. Demonstrate empathy. "This may come as somewhat of a surprise for some of you. I know several of you are very close to X and this is especially tough news for you. These are never easy decisions. And I can tell you this was not a rash decision, it was a thoughtful one considered over a period of time."
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3. Honor privacy and speak to what you can. "As you know, for confidentiality reasons and in honoring this individual's privacy, I will not provide specifics as to why X is no longer employed here. What I can tell you is that it was no longer a good fit." It's helpful if you can add what it wasn’t about. For example - “I can also tell you it wasn’t about their performance that led to this decision” or “I can also tell you it wasn’t a financial decision.”

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4. Share what’s next. Some of you may be wondering what this means for the team – what this means is XYZ. (For example preemptively speak to who’s covering the workload of the person who's now gone and is there an intention to hire a replacement - if so what's the timeline.)
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5. Reassure, empathize and bring together. "Please know, no one here needs to fear for their job. If you haven't heard from me otherwise, all of you meet the character expectations of this organization as well as the competency expectations of your role - which is no small feat since we have high expectations. For those of you who were close to this team member, I understand if you need to take a moment to be with this news. Please do what you need to do to support yourself at this time - and of course, feel free to reach out to me directly. Also know I will look for us to pull together as a team during this time of transition."
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Sending you goodness for communicating in a way that supports your team and your culture through this often difficult and important transition.
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