Letting an employee go is hard. There's an emotional component and procedural one. If you have a checklist, you can make the process flow smoothly and comprehensively and reduce business disruption.

Keep in mind, you may intend to give your employee two weeks notice, but the moment you say, "I'm letting you go," you may no longer have an employee. They may end the conversation and never communicate with you again. Be prepared for that.

0) Create an offboarding checklist

This essay is the start of your offboarding checklist. Take the points below, create your own document, and paste them in. Then edit it to clarify the things you need to do that are specific to your company.

Please make sure this checklist and all the following documents are accessible only to the people in the company that know you are letting the employee go.

You do not want to have it leak that you're letting someone go.

1) Ensure access to passwords

No employee should have sole access to any company password. Whether you are letting someone go or not, this is true. Get your company a password manager like 1Pass immediately and have all employees move their passwords to it.

2) Plan the disbursement of responsibilities

Write down a list of the employee's current responsibilities and how those will be handled once they are no longer with the company. Make a list of the conversations you need to have with other employees.

3) Write the separation agreement

When ending a relationship that is at least loosely regulated, you want the details written down, especially the official end date and severance pay.

A separation agreement should have at least those details, an indemnification clause, and a place for both you and the soon-to-be-ex employee to sign. You can find plenty of templates online if you search for: employment separate agreement template. Modify that template and ensure you have a clause about them giving up their right to take legal action against the company in exchange for a severance payment. You don't want the former employee to sue you and you must give them something in order for them to give up that right, that is one purpose of severance pay.

Have the agreement ready to go. You may need to slightly modify it as a result of the actual face-to-face meeting you'll have to terminate the employee, such as tweaking the date or severance amounts, but it should be 95% ready.

4) Draft an announcement

You'll want to let the others in the company know about the change and depending on the employee's role, clients, vendors and others outside the company.

Draft two announcements, one internal use and one for external use. Be positive in the announcement and clarify how the responsibilities the former employee had will be disbursed.

5) Cue up tech offboarding

Employees have access to company systems such as email, databases, and group chat. Make sure you have those listed out and be ready to remove the employee as a user.

Decide how you want communication apps handled. I recommend external communications such as emails and texts be forwarded to someone else in the company rather than with an out-of-office response.

6) Prepare for the interaction

Write down the points you want to cover in the meeting when you actually tell the employee you're terminating them. A script may make you sound too wooden, but you do want reminders of everything you've got to cover and reminders of how you're approaching this interaction, with compassion and professionalism.

It's a hard thing to fire someone. If you're a good business owner, it should feel bad. It means you care about your employees as individuals. But you care about all of your employees and it's unfair to them and to you to keep on someone who shouldn't be part of the company anymore.

With the above checklist, you'll make the process go smoother for yourself, your soon-to-be ex-employee, and your company. You all a good process.