Can We Terminate an Employee for Poor Performance During Notice Period? Seeking Advice and Sample Letter

Dear All, I need a suggestion on a termination case wherein an employee had performance issues and late logins, leading to us issuing a warning letter and a PIP letter. Subsequently, she resigned from her position and is currently serving her notice period.

After her resignation, she has not been completing the assigned work on time and continues to log in late despite receiving warnings. Additionally, during her notice period, she has taken leaves citing emergencies, which has led to her unacceptable behavior impacting work.

Please advise if we can terminate such employees, what the procedure would be, and if you could provide a sample termination letter for reference, it would be greatly appreciated.

Awaiting your inputs.

Regards, Shwetha

1. Do you have any policy for separation? If yes, please observe it strictly.

2. If not, then please prepare the same, get it approved, and circulate it to employees so that in the next such case, you can handle it in a better manner.

Dear Shwetha, misconduct during notice periods cannot be condoned. Therefore, I recommend you follow the normal process of handling employee indiscipline. Order the domestic enquiry. Let the misconduct be proved. If the misconduct is proven, then you may give her appropriate punishment.

By the way, your post has many grammatical and spelling errors. Please write the draft of the post on MS Word and then copy and paste. To maintain personal credibility, you can make these efforts.

Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar

It would be helpful if you could provide any sample letters for the same.

Thank you!

In such a case, one can ask the employee not to serve the notice period with immediate effect and pay off all his dues according to the organization's separation policy (consider the misconduct in calculating F&F). This acts as a check on his misconduct.

Also, let the employee know of the impact of a bad reference from you in the future.

Dear Swati, you have given suggestions on the post of Shwetha. That is fine; however, the line in your post reads, "let the employee know of the impact of a bad reference from you in the future." Using the reference check as a weapon will be its gross misuse. Bad reference checks destroy the careers of individuals. An employee might have played truant, or they may have exhibited wayward behavior. Nevertheless, awarding punishment for such behavior is different from giving a threat regarding a reference check. What if threats from HR become the order of the day?

Let us not forget the fiasco that Tech Mahindra had to undergo recently. For the unseemly and inhuman termination of an employee, none other than Mr. Anand Mahindra, as well as CEO Mr. Gurnani, had to apologize. It was the bold move of the terminated employee who uploaded an audio file of the conversation with HR on social media. However, before that person, many others must have been sacked, and their method of termination might have gone unnoticed for a long time.

If some smart individual captures this threat, then what could happen, I leave it to your imagination.

Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar

Dear Dinesh,

I agree with you. But how do we deal with employees who, even after receiving verbal and written warnings, continue the same behavior that impacts our clients and work environment? Please suggest how to take it forward.