Employment terminations take careful time and planning

Remember Donald Trump on "The Apprentice" a few years ago? All I can say is that guy used to make employment terminations look good! Seemed so easy, so simple, and so right to the point as long as you were wearing a tailored suit and were seated in an immaculate looking conference room.

In reality, employment terminations don’t start and end within 30 seconds. Nor do they usually end with an empathetic employee that just “understands” the decision and is motivated to moving on to the next step.

Most terminations are far from simple and easy, but necessary in managing a business. I would love to say that every employee makes the right decisions, performs at optimal levels and excels with motivated excitement in the workplace, but that just isn’t true. Sometimes it becomes inevitable for an employment relationship to end, and often times it’s the employer who has to play the role of the bad guy in a workplace breakup.

Living and working within the great State of Idaho means employment is by law at-will. Legally this means an employer (or an employee, for that matter) can terminate employment with or without cause and with or without notice. Pretty open and flexible for both employees and employers, no?

This shouldn’t be construed that employers can let employees go whenever they want to and without careful planning, or that legal issues won’t arise from the way an employer manages a termination.

Every termination or potential terminations should be carefully considered and planned to ensure it is being managed properly. I know that's easy for me to say, being an expert on the subject, but in truth terminations don’t have to be so hard. They can be done in a fair, consistent, and diplomatic manner.

While every termination is different and surrounded by different circumstances and factors, here are some concrete tips that should be applied to every termination:

• Termination meetings should ALWAYS be held in a private and confidential setting. The information relayed in a termination is on a need-to-know basis.
• Termination meetings should be held early in the day if possible. Making an employee work through a full shift isn’t fair or considerate in most cases. Despite the circumstances, remember that your employees are people too and keep in mind how you would like to be treated if the tables were turned.
• Stick to the facts. Start of by making sure you have facts, documentation, policies/procedures and evidence to support your decision. Hearsay won’t be helpful during the meeting or after they are gone, so make sure you have the right information going into the meeting. If the termination involves a specific incident or behavior, get the employee’s side of the story. This allows you to gather insight on items you may have been unaware of or not even considered. This has been a game changer for me in situations when employees had sometimes no other options or courses of action to take in certain situations.
• Bring tissues – but make sure to check the emotions at the door. Emotions are high with employment terminations on both sides. Inserting emotion into an already difficult situation only complicates the meeting. Assert your position but try to be empathetic and make sure to steer clear from drawing in any emotions or personal feelings.
• Mean what you say and say what you mean. Remember, the employee is more than likely going to be defensive, so choose your words carefully. They also may handpick statements made in the termination meeting for action against the company, so be mindful of the long-term impact of your words.
• Ensure the decisions you have made regarding the termination will be uniformly considered/applied to similar situations in the future. Make sure you are compliant with your policies/procedures and that in similar situations in the future you are committed to taking similar actions. If you are making individual specific decisions based on common performance issues/behaviors, you could end up with future legal issues by playing the nice guy with an employee or two.

Document the termination meeting with all the relevant facts. Ensure the employee is able to read the termination notice and, if willing, sign the notice alongside the management member who handled the situation.

Break-ups are never easy – and workplace break-ups are no exception. Unlike the end of a personal relationship, the way a termination is managed can have a long-lasting impact on a company and may even be accompanied by unemployment claims or worse.

If you need help, there are helpful professionals (HR managers/professionals, consultants, even attorneys) with great insight to share. It’s worth the time and money you may have to spare to make the right decisions for you and the employee.
Monica Bitrick is a human relations consultant who lives and works in Idaho Falls.

Bonneville County home sales numbers remarkably consistent

I did one of my semi-regular examinations of Bonneville County home sales statistics today, looking at the first five months for the last five years, and the one thing that jumped out at me is how remarkably consistent the numbers have been for the most part.

The Snake River Regional Multiple Listing Service puts these numbers out every month using four criteria: Units (homes) sold, average days on market, median price and new listings. Considering where our economy has been since 2008, what surprises me is how these numbers stayed pretty steady except for the two numbers I've change to red: the number of new listings in the first five months of 2010 (really up) and the median price in 2012 (down somewhat).

I'm not sure what it means, but here's something to think about. Early 2010 was when the stimulus bill was probably having its greatest effect on local economies. Although a lot of people have dismissed it as ineffective, in Bonneville County it was anything but. Why? Because there was a lot of shovel-ready work on the desert with the Idaho Cleanup Project, and the sudden infusion of federal dollars was all it took to get things rolling.

If you'd care to offer any observations of your own, feel free.

Teton Volkswagen holds ribbon cutting

Ein ... zwei ... drei ... and the ribbon is cut at Teton Volkswagen on Sunnyside Road. The new dealership has 15,000 square feet, including a service department with at laser-guided alignment rack. It has been more than a year since Teton VW went into business, first on Outlet Boulevard, then on Anderson Street. In that time, they have sold 360 new Volkswagens and more than 600 used cars. At the new permanent, high-visibility location they are hoping to do even better.

Social media marketing expert speaks at chamber luncheon

Tim Hong

This might be disappointing, but even if that "Like Us On Facebook" sign you hung on your store got you 500 likes in two days, it doesn't mean all 500 people who liked you are going to see your posts.

When it comes to marketing and social media, change is not only constant but accelerating, said Tim Hong, strategic alliances senior manager for Adobe.

A 1989 Blackfoot High School graduate, Hong was in Idaho Falls Tuesday to speak at the Greater Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce's 2020 Vision for Business Luncheon.

Advertising spending on social media platforms -- Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc. -- has grown exponentially in the last five years, first for desktop computers and now for mobile devices. Done right, online analytics (Hong's expertise) allow advertisers to measure the success of a campaign in far more detail than it was possible with old media advertising (TV, print, radio).

Nevertheless, a lot of business people, especially small business people, might be wondering the same old question: "How do I know what works?"

A lot of people feel the marketing landscape has changed more in the past two years than it did in the previous 50. Two years ago, the focus was on "vanity metrics," e.g. how many "likes" a business could rustle up on Facebook.

But Facebook has been changing its algorithms, to the point now where 2 percent of the people who've liked your page actually see your posts. Of course you can pay to get better exposure, which is what Facebook wants.

Mobile devices have doubled the amount of time people spend online, and advertising budgets for mobile are growing seven times faster than desktop. "The pace of change, is accelerating, not slowing down," Hong said.

He spoke at length about Foursquare, a web and mobile application that allows registered users to post their location at a venue ("check-in") and connect with friends. Check-in requires active user selection and points are awarded at check-in. To date, there have been more than 5 billion check-ins with Foursquare.

For any business that wants to get a return on investment, understanding the audience is still essential. Rather than trying to be all things to all people, it's best to target your message.

"Be an independent voice, relevant to the people who care about you," Hong said. "Don't try to be popular to everybody on social media."

Idaho Falls Sleep Inn wins TripAdvisor award

A screen shot of the hotel's TripAdvisor page

The Idaho Falls Sleep Inn has received a 2014 TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Exceptional Service Award. Now in its twelfth year, the program names winners based on the quality of reviews and ratings posted online by TripAdvisor travelers.

"We are extremely proud of the Sleep Inn Idaho Falls team for earning this well-deserved recognition," said Anne Smith, vice president of brand strategy for Choice Hotels International, which owns the hotel chain.

Here's one of the reviews, from VickiR53 of Lakeville, Minn.: "We pulled off the highway around 8 pm and didn't see any place to eat but since we were tired we decided to stay. We were so surprised to find they had complementary soup and salad until 9. Very good soup, great salad, garlic bread along with fresh cookies. There were 3 in our group and only one cookies so I inquired at the desk and they said the would bring more in 5 minutes and even asked what kind we wanted! Breakfast was just as good with plenty of seating. And the room was wonderful! We even took pictures to show our friends. We have added Sleep Inn to our list of best places to stay!"

Looking at the Website, it appears that the hotels sales and marketing manager, Matt McGrath, is very good at keeping up with the reviews and replying to them. His answer to VickiR53: "We are always very excited when our hotel is the subject of the first TripAdvisor review someone ever writes. We're glad we made an impression that inspired you to share your experience with others. You mentioned that you had taken some pictures. Would you be willing to post them here?"

This is how it's done in our Web-based world.

Opened in 2010, the Idaho Falls Sleep in is on the west side of Interstate 15 Exit 116. It is owned by the Montana-based Town Pump Group, which recently received the Choice Hotels International Premier Hotelier award at the 60th annual Choice Hotels International Convention in Las Vegas.

As part of the chain-wide Designed to Dream program, Sleep Inn Idaho Falls has already rolled out new bedding and pillows, new guest room lighting, lobby furniture and window treatments toward the design concept's upgrades to guest rooms and public spaces throughout hotel.