Are You Too Slow to Fire Someone?

Hello and welcome to Episode 339 of The People Powered Business Podcast.

You already know who this episode is about. The employee whose performance has been off for months, the one you keep making excuses for because actually ending their employment feels like the hardest conversation you'll ever have to have. If you've been sitting on a firing decision, telling yourself you'll deal with it next month, or after this project wraps up, or once things settle down, I need you to listen to this one properly.

I'm talking about this today because it's come up in nearly every conversation I've had with business owners this week. In the last seven days alone, I've worked with three different owners who sat on a firing decision for so long that it made the exit far harder than it needed to be. No documented warnings, none of the process followed, because they'd been putting it off for months. By the time they came to me saying "I need to fire them now," I was the one having to put the brakes on so we could actually do this properly and legally. It didn't need to get that hard. It rarely does, if you act when you first know.

In this episode, I'm walking you through the practical checks to run before you make the call, including whether they're still in their probationary period, whether you've actually documented a warning or just stayed quietly annoyed, and whether this is genuinely a performance issue or a personality clash you've let become one. I also get into the real reasons business owners stall on this decision even when they already know the answer, and what that delay is quietly costing your best people, the ones watching how you handle it. But the part I really want you to hear is this: confidence about a firing decision doesn't show up before you act. It shows up after, usually the moment your team finally tells you what had really been going on.

In this episode we cover:

• The legal and practical checks to run before you make the call, including probation status, documented warnings, and whether this is actually a performance issue or a personality clash
• Why business owners delay firing decisions even when they already know the outcome
• What your best people are quietly noticing when you let poor performance slide, and why it's often the reason you lose them first
• Why the rest of your team is almost always covering for an underperformer, and what that's really costing them
• Why confidence about this decision comes after you act, not before it

Links & Resources:

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What this episode covers

This episode addresses why small business owners consistently delay firing decisions, even once performance issues are clear, and what that delay costs the wider team. It's built for business owners who are avoiding a termination they already know is necessary. By the end, listeners understand the legal and practical checks to run before acting, the real reasons behind the delay, and why confidence in the decision typically follows the action rather than coming before it.

Key insight from this episode

Confidence in a firing decision is not a precondition for acting. It's a result of acting. Business owners who delay a termination while waiting to feel certain are working backwards, because the clarity, and often the affirming feedback from the team, only becomes available once the decision has already been made and acted on.

What you'll take away

• A practical checklist of legal and performance factors to review before terminating an employee, including probationary status and documented warnings
• A clearer understanding of the psychological and business reasons owners delay difficult staffing decisions
• Insight into how ongoing underperformance affects team morale, standards, and the workload carried by other staff
• A reframe of confidence as a result of decisive action, not a precondition for it
• Guidance on avoiding common misconceptions about the legal termination process, including the myth of a fixed number of required warnings