How to fire someone (with a scored example)

They already know this meeting is not a 1:1. A five-minute tour of “you have contributed so much” sounds like a yes. Open with the fact: we are ending your employment, today is the last day, this follows the process we have already walked. Then you can be human. People remember the first sentence and the last. If the first sentence is fog, they will spend the meeting decoding whether they still have a job. That is not kindness. That is delay.

The PIP was the argument. Today is the decision. If they say it is unfair, you can acknowledge that it is hard and point back to the written plan. You do not re-open every ticket. You do not produce a new list of sins they have never heard. You do not say “maybe we can try thirty more days” because the room is hot. That sentence creates a promise the organisation did not approve and a legal mess you will own. Short is professional. Long is how managers talk themselves into cruelty or into a reversal they cannot keep.

You say the sentence. HR — or the written letter — covers final pay, holiday, references, and equipment. If you do not have HR, you still need a letter and a script for access. Do not invent severance in the chair. Do not discuss the departure with the team beyond a factual line you have already agreed. The person leaving should hear it from you before the Slack channel does. After they leave the room, write down what was said. Memory is a poor witness.

The opening is where managers ramble. Write it. Say it out loud. “We are ending your employment today. This follows the performance plan we have been on since March.” That is enough. Then stop. If you need notes, take notes. This is not a presentation. It is a legal and human fact. Practise until you can say it without a joke, without a shake, and without a tour of their childhood at the company. If the sentence still surprises you, it will surprise them twice.

Access, the team line, the letter, the note to yourself. If you walk out and improvise the Slack message, you will say too much. Agree the sentence with HR before the meeting: the person has left, here is who owns the work, we will not discuss the reasons. Then go home. Managers who “check they are okay” on personal WhatsApp overnight make the process messier and the person less safe. Duty of care has a route. Use it. If you need to debrief, debrief with HR or your own manager — not with the team that is about to ask you what happened. The kitchen is not a witness statement.

“Quick catch-up” is how people arrive hopeful and leave wrecked. If policy allows, they should know this is a formal meeting. A witness in the room is not cruelty. It is how both of you have a shared record when memory starts to argue with itself later. If you cannot say the purpose in the invite, you are not ready to say it in the room either.

Doing it on a Friday afternoon so they “have the weekend.” Doing it over chat. Doing it alone when policy says a witness. Blaming “HR made me.” Listing every grievance because you are nervous. Asking them how they feel and then filling the silence with a maybe. Practise the version where they argue it is unfair. If you can hold the decision there, you can hold it when it is real. This page is practice for the conversation, not a substitute for employment advice.