It may be one of the more unpleasant aspects of managing a collision repair facility, but having to fire an employee is at times a necessary business strategy. If you find yourself in the position of having to terminate an employee, make sure you do it the right way to make it as smooth as possible for you, the person being terminated, your other employees, and most importantly – your business.
According to Craig Van Batenburg, CEO of the Automotive Career Development Center (ACDC), collision shop managers should strive to make good hiring decisions in order to avoid having to fire an employee in the first place. “Every time I’ve fired somebody I’ve realized that it was a poor hiring decision,” he explains. “If you hire properly, you can avoid having to fire somebody.” Van Batenburg says that a good hiring strategy is to make sure the applicant is genuinely interested in the job. He does that by performing a first interview and then asking the candidate to come back the next day at 6:30 a.m. for a second interview. They’ll be there and they’ll be on time if they’re truly interested in the job, and you can also see how alert they are in the morning, which is important in a body shop environment where early morning hours are the norm. If a candidate passes these two tests, Van Batenburg has them come in a third time – to interview him. Even after making a good hiring decision, sometimes things don’t work out. That doesn’t mean the relationship is over – yet. Maybe there’s something going on in the employee’s life that you need to be aware of. Maybe there are ways to help them improve the bad behavior. “If there’s a problem with an employee being late to work, for example, maybe he’s having trouble getting a child to day care in the mornings or something. I might have his wife come in and try to get to know the family; maybe there’s something going on I can help with. Before firing someone, it should always be a salvage thing. I think of how can I be a generous, responsible person.” When all of your options have been exhausted and termination is the way to go, Van Batenburg says it’s better to end the relationship than to threaten to let them go, or to give them an ultimatum. “If you give someone an ultimatum, do the more honorable thing and give them a pink slip,” he says. “When you realize that the employee is to the point where you say to them, ‘If you paint a car the wrong way one more time, you’re fired,’ or whatever it is they’re doing wrong, you’re already at the point where the relationship is destroyed. When you find yourself having to give them an ultimatum, you know they’ll make that mistake again.” Van Batenburg also says to never fire an employee out of anger. “Go in your office, bite your tongue, shut your mouth and sleep on it. If you fire someone when you’re angry you create a firestorm. I’ve had employees I knew I was going to fire and I kept them for 2-3 months until I had a replacement lined up.” Van Batenburg has an interesting strategy to keep job candidates available. “I ran a body shop I had a P.O. box in another town and I started a fictitious company, like an employment agency for techs, and about once a month I wrote a simple ad that said ‘send me your resume.’ Always keep resumes on file in case you have to fire someone.” When you do have the termination meeting, never have the conversation privately. “I would always have my office manager there with me,” says Van Batenburg. | 
