If severance is possible, it will indeed help her and also show your other employees that you are not being heartless. I will caution you on the health insurance continuance. SInce you have 20 employees, you are covered by COBRA and must offer the continuance coverage. If you want to be generous and you can afford it, you can certainly reimburse her for the cost of the COBRA coverage; do not leave her on the health insurance as an active employee. Insurance companies require covered employees to be actively at work; so handle it via reimbursement.

You probably do not have an EAP (employee assistance program) however, you may still have resources to help both this employee and you, during the termination process. Contact the business/employer resources function at your local community college, college or even the county government; they may have free/low cost resources for employers (our county resource is called Business and Employer Resource Center).

Lastly, and I’m sure you know this, do not have this conversation with her alone. Have another staff person (preferably female) with you during this conversation. Be your compassionate self, but maintain control of the conversation.

In my state, short-term disability insurance is a requirement, and it’s deducted from gross pay, just like SSI is. But long-term disability is not a state requirement, any more than health insurance is, or sick time, or vacation time. So an employee can choose not to buy that coverage, and if they’re in their first or 2nd job, they’re probably more interested in maximizing their take-home pay.

Companies make LTD optional? That seems nuts.

Yes. And there’s no question that it’s the responsibilities that are going away, not that you’re trying to get rid of the person.

It’s all very sad.

It is so, so, so, hard to terminate someone in a position like this.

Another time it’s really difficult to terminate someone is when they’ve been on disability leave and they aren’t going to get better, and they turned down the super cheap long term disability insurance when they were hired.

Heartbreaking, but you’ve got to do it.

I think Suzanne’s suggestions will be very helpful both to the boss and the employee, especially the one re drawing up the new job posting beforehand, so that the new position’s responsibilities are clearly illustrated.

Sally,

That’s a very good piece of advice! Do many small (under 20) companies have EAPs? I don’t know the statistics.