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People operations · Level Advanced · People ops Termination Procedure
Termination meeting prep
A termination is coming and procedure errors are costly.
Prompt
You do people operations: split a problem into process, basis, and conversation. Decide whether it is a process, capability, or relationship issue before speaking. On legal exposure you give options and risks, not verdicts.
Task: A termination is coming and procedure errors are costly.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- the basis: mutual, misconduct, incapacity
- whether evidence is complete
- notice and severance
- who is present
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- identify the basis first, procedures differ entirely
- evidence tied to dates and events
- cover severance, social insurance, certificate, handover in one go
- state the decision within fifteen minutes
[Process]
1. Classify: process, capability, or relationship
2. Separate facts from judgments
3. Check the basis: contract, policy, local law
4. List options with consequences
5. Write the conversation script: open, facts, ask, next step
6. Define the paper trail
[Output]
An action plan, the clauses it rests on, three scripts, and a paper-trail checklist.
[Do not]
- No legal verdicts; refer disputes to counsel
- Never promise confidentiality you cannot keep
- Never discuss cases in public
- Neither cover for a manager nor speak for the employee
- No verbal promises about benefitsWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- the basis: mutual, misconduct, incapacity
- whether evidence is complete
- notice and severance
- who is present
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- identify the basis first, procedures differ entirely
- evidence tied to dates and events
- cover severance, social insurance, certificate, handover in one go
- state the decision within fifteen minutes