As a head of school and school director, I occasionally had reason to dismiss an employee which was the second-worst professional conversation I ever had to have. (The first was over what is and is not appropriate clothing and personal presentation for an educator.) I would like to share one of these Cloudflare events which happened to me, and what I endeavored to do every time I found myself on the other end of such a conversation.
When I first left college, I did not know I was destined for pedagogy and I got myslf a position as a "recruitment consultant". This was in a boutique head-hunting outfit, and I was on a year's training, supervised, probationary period and a base salary with the promise of having my own portfolio of clients and niche market at year-end.
The company owner told me that the old days of folders and buddies and advertising vacancies were over and I was trained in cold-calling, prospecting, databases, key-words and what is now ATS recruitment. Being young and enthusiastic, and liking the idea of payment on results, I did the duck and water thing.
On the 90--day review, I was blown over by the delight of the owner and the 25% of annual base salary bonus check. All was going well. On the 180-day review, I was given a 1040 and escorted from the building. No reason, no explanation, no discussion, no regret. I now know it was because the company;s owner did not want to expose himself to legal action thus the sealed lips. At the tine, I was devastated.
That night a co-worker called and invited me for a drink at the end of the week. Then, he told me what had apparently happened. The head of the unit was growing increasingly angry at my success and accordingly at the increased expectations on her, so she had given the owner an ultimatum. Either I went, or she would. I had been fired for doing what I had been asked to do, for doing it effectively and for exceeding expectations.
Less than three years later, that unit was gone and less than five years the entire company. I am confident both were a result of the owner's management decisions, like that which he had taken vis-a-vis moi, and their failure to implement the new approaches and technology.
I never forgot that experience and that feeling, which partly explains my high expectations on any staff and concomitantly my paying a high a remuneration as I can.
At the same time, I always tried to ensure that both for students and teachers, the final grade or report card or performance-evaluation should be a surprise but merely a memorialization of what was already known. So in the case of teachers, I always had a published policy of :
- informal oral guidance from line managers, heads of department etc
- formal oral direction from line managers, heads of department etc
- final oral expectation from the division head, deputy principal etc
- final written expectation from the division head, deputy principal etc
- termination meeting with me and a neutral witness
These steps were paired with published categories of events or actions which would lead to such actions, categorized as minor, major and gross, and of course timeframes, expirations and so on. And as everyone involved in education knows, documentation.
So by the time the final stage was reached, the whats and whys were clear and more often than not, the employee involved had voluntarily departed, thereby avoiding unpleasantness. If and when I had to have the termination meeting, there was often a willfulness or even antagonism on the employee's part which was of course all documented. While some did dispute my reasons and or actions, I never lost an employment tribunal case and was never even criticized by the hearing officer. In most cases, the former employees were admonished for bringing the claims.
I do sympathise with Cloudfare Brittany. While the company's actions may have been justified, how they did what they did was not.
**Please leave comments and queries below."**
Further reading
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=brittany+pietsch
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