Human Resource Blog

This is a matter of company policy rather than employment law. There is no law that would require that an exempt employee handle all terminations. The best practice would be for a member of management or the supervisor to terminate an employee to prevent misunderstandings and conflicts between coworkers. It would be appropriate to delegate this to an exempt manager or hourly supervisor if possible. However, in some circumstances this may not be possible.

From a legal perspective, the mail room clerk can terminate the CEO if he has been given permission to do so by the Board of Directors.

This is a gray area, and termination is always problematic in California. If the employee has exceeded the number of consecutive absences (two or three weeks?) that you usually allow an employee who is not covered by CFRA or FMLA, and he is expected to make a full recovery, then you may be justified in terminating him for non-attendance.

Simply terminating the employee after he missed two or three days might very well be illegal discrimination based on a perceived disability, if you would not terminate an employee with the flu or chicken pox who missed a few days of work.

However, depending upon which toe was amputated, this may very well be a permanent disability. In that case, unpaid time off might very well be a reasonable accommodation.