Community intelligence — not legal advice

First-Time Firing of a Well-Liked Underperformer

Case file · TerminationsFiled 07·2026

Jurisdiction

US-OR

Team size

~20 employees

Industry

Undisclosed

Union

No

The situation

A small team likes an employee personally, but the employee is not capable of performing the job accurately. They make frequent mistakes despite repeated coaching. HR has never terminated anyone before and wants to make it as painless as possible.

Context

The employee answers phones and does data entry. Errors include incorrect names, typos, and repeated quality issues that make the organization look incompetent to clients. The manager and HR have discussed the issues with the employee multiple times.

The org

A small Oregon business; final pay and termination requirements vary by state.

In playPerformance managementprogressive disciplinetermination approvalfinal paybenefits continuationequipment/property return

Evidence

  1. 01Firing for poor performance: best practicesSHRM
  2. 02What to include (and not include) in a termination letterSHRM
  3. 03I need to discipline or fire an employeeEEOC
  4. 04What to say when terminating an employee, with sample scriptsTriNet

Member discussion · reviewed

The floor

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1 take on the floor

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Floor transcript

01 takes · 00 replies

Kristy McCannKristy McCannFrom the committeeJul 29

In a small company, while everything is a rush we need to slow down to ensure an employee termination is handled with care as it reflects your leadership, your trust, your culture and values even more. It can literally make or break a company regardless of it's success and erode engagement, productivity and outcomes even more.

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