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Common decent practice for terminations

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What is a best practice process for terminating for non-causal situations. That is, the employee is just not performing — not that they are stealing, or violent, or a High Level Employee. For some reason, the HR department feels it necessary to terminate employees on Friday, mid-afternoon. They get boxes and escort people to a “certain” conference room. The employee doesn’t know what is hitting them, they are not allowed to go to their desk say after lunch and they are paraded thru the company carrying boxes that are packed for them. I have honestly never heard of such displays- EXCEPT for “cause” situations or EXCEPT where there are KEY Employees- who could for example cause damage or expose for example trade secrets, etc. Please advise what is a common, decent practice.

First of all, many HR pros would say that terminating an employee for poor performance was terminating them for cause. While the procedure that you mention is a little stricter than most, nothing about it suggests that it is out of bounds. Many employers have the policy of escorting terminated employees off the property. It prevents them from spreading lies or rumors, or otherwise damaging employee morale, on the way out. Most companies permit employees to pack up their own belongings, but in this case there seems to be some concern that the employees would be taking company property. You seem to feel that the employees who are treated this way are unduly embarassed — it is hard for us to tell if this is the case or not. Surely the coworkers are going to notice that John has been fired, anyway? So what difference does it make if he is escorted off the property.

You say that the employee does not know what is hitting them, but surely they are aware of the performance issues? And, just being sent to that conference room on a Friday would be a clue, right?

This procedure would be a best practice in HR if there was any risk of violence in the workplace — for example, if there were a number of layoffs or terminations due to a merger. It is probably a wise precaution for the employer to take, and certainly within the bounds of good HR practice.