True Faith HR: There's Still Work To Do When It Comes to Firing Employees

There's Still Work To Do When It Comes to Firing Employees

by Matthew Stollak on Wednesday, March 27, 2013

You're Tubby Smith, head coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers. You're successful in your job, leading your teams to 20 win seasons in 18 of the 21 years you've been a head coach. You've won a National Championship in 1998. You just led your team to a NCAA appearance and a 2nd round victory over the UCLA Bruins.

You would not only think that you would be able to keep your job, but if you were to be fired, you would at least get the courtesy of knowing before the rest of the world.

Alas, being a Hall of Fame-caliber coach buys you none of that.

According to Andy Katz at ESPN:

Tubby Smith and his staff had no idea they were about to be fired Monday morning as they sat in a staff meeting at 10 a.m. going over recruiting, offseason workout plans and evaluations of the Gophers' loss to Florida the previous day. Members of the Minnesota staff said they were sitting in the meeting when they started receiving text messages from coaching colleagues telling them they had been fired. Smith told them that he had to meet with the administration at 1 p.m. It was then, according to the staff, that Smith and ultimately the staff found out they had been fired.

When others outside the organization are finding out about your termination before you do, HR is not doing their job (or the very least, being kept out of the loop).

One wonders as well about the impact on future hires. Would you take a job with an organization that treated its high profile coach in such a manner? If you're thinking about taking the Minnesota head coach job, my guess is you should be able to negotiate an extra hundred grand or two as a result.