Why is it hard to fire someone in large corporations?

Phokus

Lifer
Nov 20, 1999
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This was said in a couple of threads and i asked why but my question kinda got buried.

But anyway, why is it hard to fire someone in large corporations (and with the implication that it's easier to fire someone in smaller corporations)?

 

Linflas

Lifer
Jan 30, 2001
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Large target for populist pols and lawyers so they take a lot more time to minimize their exposure to lawsuits and demonization.
 

Phokus

Lifer
Nov 20, 1999
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Originally posted by: Linflas
Large target for populist pols and lawyers so they take a lot more time to minimize their exposure to lawsuits and demonization.

Wouldn't that relate more to mass layoffs rather than an individual firing?
 

KB

Diamond Member
Nov 8, 1999
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More supervisors have to approve it, or want to get their hands involved.
 

Linflas

Lifer
Jan 30, 2001
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Originally posted by: Phokus
Originally posted by: Linflas
Large target for populist pols and lawyers so they take a lot more time to minimize their exposure to lawsuits and demonization.

Wouldn't that relate more to mass layoffs rather than an individual firing?

Not really. All it would take is for them to fire some person that the local Nitwitness News broadcasts could exploit the story of (think divorced one legged mommy with a brood of 10 kids by 10 different men) during sweeps and the pols and lawyers would come swooping in like flies on a steaming pile of you know what.
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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Getting sued, minority issues, pay issues, having to pay people for being out of work, paperwork, having to go through multiple channels (supervisors, HR department, etc.), covering their old position when they leave, associate benefits that need to be terminated...it's just a lot of work and hassle.

What ticks me off is the lack of change you can do in a large corporation. I used to work for Pizza Hut and there were so many things I would have done differently to improve the store's efficiency in customer service, product quality, employee frustration, etc., but I couldn't change a thing because the corporation was so large. When I got promoted to manager, I brought up several issues with my regional manager and he's like, basically you have to deal with it, there's absolutely nothing we can do - we can't change the processes for assembling the food, we can't change the computer systems, nada. It's frustrating, but if stuff like that bothers you, don't work for a large corporation :)
 

Uppsala9496

Diamond Member
Nov 2, 2001
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There isn't a difference in large or small corporations.
If you fire someone and don't document everything to the 't', you are screwed.
Even having everything documented perfect and being completely correct doesn't mean you are not going to get sued.

Firing someone usually results in about $10,000 worth of costs. All it takes is the person saying they are going to sue. They make an EEOC complaint (or state equivalent), and now you are dealing with another headache. It's a lot easier to say, "here, take $7,500 or $10,000 and please sign this release form."
 

torpid

Lifer
Sep 14, 2003
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Because the people who have to agree to the firing are often isolated from the team that has the problem and thus it has to go through a long food chain where no one except the immediate manager understands the issue and even then they must not object and offer assinine solutions like "if we sent him to training would that help?"
 

boredhokie

Senior member
May 7, 2005
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Originally posted by: Kaido
Getting sued, minority issues, pay issues, having to pay people for being out of work, paperwork, having to go through multiple channels (supervisors, HR department, etc.), covering their old position when they leave, associate benefits that need to be terminated...it's just a lot of work and hassle.

What ticks me off is the lack of change you can do in a large corporation. I used to work for Pizza Hut and there were so many things I would have done differently to improve the store's efficiency in customer service, product quality, employee frustration, etc., but I couldn't change a thing because the corporation was so large. When I got promoted to manager, I brought up several issues with my regional manager and he's like, basically you have to deal with it, there's absolutely nothing we can do - we can't change the processes for assembling the food, we can't change the computer systems, nada. It's frustrating, but if stuff like that bothers you, don't work for a large corporation :)

If you worked in corporate you could have probably influenced many of those problems. I work for a large corporation and haven't had any problem influencing change.
 

SarcasticDwarf

Diamond Member
Jun 8, 2001
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Originally posted by: Aimster
I heard getting fired in the federal govt. is almost near impossible.

In most places it is essentially impossible to be fired if you are a teacher (unless it is very public matter where you slept with a young student or something, then it is very easy).
 

torpid

Lifer
Sep 14, 2003
11,631
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Government is a different issue. That has to do with unions and not the same corporate accountability and insanely long food chains before you get to the guy who can agree to the firing.
 

kranky

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
21,019
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It's the lawsuit thing mostly. Someone gets fired, they get a lawyer, the lawyer sees a large corporation and threatens a lawsuit. The corporation probably has a very expensive high-class law firm so any legal action is going to cost them plenty. The lawyer takes the case on a 30% contingency so the person who got fired has nothing to lose.

Since it's rarely the case that the company has bulletproof evidence like videotape of the employee sabotaging equipment or something like that, there's a chance that a jury might possibly be sympathetic to the fired employee. Then the company's expensive lawyers recommend handing a pile of money to the person to avoid an even more expensive, drawn-out case.
 

illusion88

Lifer
Oct 2, 2001
13,164
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Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf
Originally posted by: Aimster
I heard getting fired in the federal govt. is almost near impossible.

In most places it is essentially impossible to be fired if you are a teacher (unless it is very public matter where you slept with a young student or something, then it is very easy).

ONLY if they have tenure. At my highschool we would let go teachers every year because we couldn't afford to pay them. It was a huge problem. My first year there we were short 1 9th grade teacher and didn't hire one until a month after classes started. The extra students were spread out between other classes.

The worst part is they let go some really really good teachers, some of the best I had ever had because of budget strains.