Many companies forget that their employees are, or can be their customers too. How you treat your employees can nip you in the butt if you’re not careful.

Ferdinand Piech, former Volkswagen CEO sums this up very succinctly:

“If you fire people, you fire customers.”

How true… firing people is not an easy thing for either party. But why does it need to be more terrible than it is? Companies need to consider the employee much more and need to make the process as easy and painless as possible.

For example, severance packages should be comensurate with the employee’s tenure, role, seniority, etc. but consideration must also be given to the nature of the termination, the current job market, the probability of finding suitable employment in a reasonable time period, etc.

These ‘customers’ will remember how you treated them and if you treat them well, you will be rewarded down the road. Plus, you will know you did the right thing given the circumstances.