HR FAQ: Does it matter what day of the week I terminate an employee?

Answer: Yes, it does matter.

Of course, there’s never a good time to tell someone they’re losing their job due to performance or a layoff, but the consensus is that you should never communicate that news on a Friday. The employee will likely be in shock the day of the termination, which leaves Saturday and Sunday for them to collect their thoughts and start asking questions about COBRA, unemployment, etc.—when most organizations are closed for business. By the time Monday rolls around, the former employee is frustrated and experiencing all the other lingering negative emotions associated with the discharge. That can cause the former employee to channel their frustration into a call to their attorney, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a social media post, or worse—workplace violence.

If Friday is off the table, when is it most appropriate to let someone go? Thursdays aren’t much better. By the time they’ve assembled their lists of next steps, they’ve lost the workweek. The prevailing thinking is to handle terminations midweek—preferably on a Tuesday or, at the latest, on a Wednesday. That leaves sufficient time for the rest of the workweek for the employee to follow up with HR, who can answer their questions about benefits continuation, unemployment insurance eligibility, outplacement benefits, and any severance that may be available to the employee. You may be thinking, the objective is to leave the employee as much time as possible in the workweek, why not terminate on Monday? Even though employees have the most days of a workweek ahead of them if they’re terminated on a Monday, employees tend to be a bit crankier on the first day back from the weekend. Terminations are traumatic enough as it is without an employee bringing a negative mindset to the meeting.

The type of termination may also impact timing. For instance, if the termination is effective on a later date, as is typical for a layoff, then presumably the employee will have more time to follow up with questions.

Employers should also consider what time of the workday to notify the employee. Scheduling   the meeting in the morning is ideal. Very rarely is the decision to let someone go made the same day it takes effect. You don’t want to leave the employee with the impression that management was hiding something until the meeting took place or behaved inauthentically with the employee throughout that day.

Further, managers may find it difficult not to communicate that bad news is coming through body language or other behaviors. Of course, terminations made at the end of the workday also may push any pressing questions that might immediately arise for that employee to the following workday, which, as we learned above, may cause the employee to channel their frustrations in ways that negatively impact the former employee and the employer.

This is  just one of the hundreds of questions we answer each week on the HR Hotline.

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