How to Replace an Employee Before They’ve Been Fired

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There is often nothing more challenging to a business than letting someone go. Not only is there an emotional component involved, but hiring someone new is often time consuming and expensive, and the learning curve and training involved is substantial.
That’s why it’s important for companies to fill open positions as soon as possible – ideally before the person they’re replacing has even left. But this becomes a sensitive issue. You do not want to let the employee know that their days at your company are coming to a close.
Replace An Employee Discreetly
It can be hard to be discreet about replacing an employee, and, if possible, you may still want to wait to officially make the hire after the employee has been let go. But you do need to start your job search as early as possible. Consider the following tips on replacing an employee in a respectful way:

  • Advertise With No Job Name – If you advertise, don’t put the name of the position or your workplace. You may even want to rewrite the job description from scratch. This will give you the opportunity to start collecting names early without any red flags being set off.
  • Start Training Internal Candidates – Another effective strategy is to start training internal candidates for the role, without necessarily offering them the job. You can talk about it as though it’s a training exercise, so that both the soon to be replaced employee and the internal candidate can avoid the tension that would otherwise come from that interaction. Then, after you let them go, you will have someone that can either do the job right away, or hold down the job until the person is replaced.
  • Use a Recruitment Company – There is perhaps no better time to use a recruitment company like Recruit Shop than when you need to replace an employee sensitively within your organization. Jobs can be advertised discreetly, and names can be provided to start the interviewing process early.
  • Look for a New Role – Finally, you can also consider transitioning the employee that you planned to let go to a new role in the company that they’d be better suited. Though this can still bring a bit of tension, it also ensures that any new hire is trained by the person that used to work there. This could decrease the learning curve and help you get the production you hoped for faster.

It is very difficult to try to hire a new employee before the previous one has been let go. You’ll need to be secretive, possibly holding interviews away from the office and having outside sources, like Recruit Shop, collect and analyze the resumes. It’s not a fun process by any means, but it’s also an understandable one, because some companies simply cannot risk moving forward without someone taking on the role. Be careful and sensitive with how you decide to recruit, and you should be able to get through it without incident.