Terminations are the most common reason for employment lawsuits. And the reason for this is that it is in terminations where supervisors or HR professionals make most of their mistakes. But companies should take good care of these termination errors, as otherwise these mistakes can cost them thousands!

Companies have to be very careful, because it is common that juries feel the need to be on the employee’s side, as they feel as if the employee is suing the company, there might be something really unfair there. Even in those cases in which the law is on the side of the company.

These are the most common errors that professionals make in terminations:

1. Not being honest or being inconsistent when doing performance reports or reviews. If an employee is terminated because of poor performance but all the performance reports say the opposite thing, there you are a possible case illegal discrimination or some kind of revenge.

2. It is not mandatory for employers to inform employees about poor performance or inappropriate conduct, but juries usually consider that employees should be warned prior to firing. Besides, if someone is terminated without suspecting it could happen, he/she is more likely to sue the company, because, the employee didn’t expected that and cannot understand the reason why it happened. Therefore, it is important that supervisors give regular reports about performance and behavior to employees, so any possible termination can be previously warned, giving the chance to the employee to solve the problem.

3. Not recognizing in the termination the period of time employees have been working for the company, specially it its been many years. It is more likely that employees that have been working in a company for decades win the lawsuit when they have suddenly been fired for poor performance.

4. Many times the termination decision is made impulsively by the boss, without taking into account to the HR specialist of the company. It is recommended that, before any termination, the decision is explained to the HR team or some kind of legal consultant to make sure that the decision is taken with enough justification and it doesn’t take the company to any lawsuit.

5. Sometimes employers try to hide the real reason of a termination and avoid any problem and just say the employee is being fired because they need to do a reduction in the work force. When this is not the real reason, we can have a serious problem in court.

6. In some cases, companies may have to go through lawsuits for reasons that are not against the law, but unfair. For instance, in many cases, employees sue the company because they don’t get their severance pay, even if it is not mandatory.