A Sample Termination Letter for ‘Not a Good Fit’ Employees

Using a sample termination letter for ‘not a good fit’ employees can seriously take the stress out of the event. With proper planning and a well-crafted severance package, bad-fit employees can be offboarded easily and without all of the stress that typically comes with  behavior-based terminations.

So how do you write a termination letter for ‘not a good fit’ employees? What do you need to include?

First off, make sure that you check out our other articles on ‘not a good fit’ employees to fully understand what a bad fit is and how you can manage them. After that, if you still believe that the best course of action is termination, you can use our sample letter to get started.

A termination letter for workers who don’t fit into your corporate culture is generally set up the same way as any other termination letter.

There are specific things that you need to cover in the letter, such as how the employee will be paid their final check, how their benefits will change, how their unused paid time off will be doled out, etc.

You need to give the employee a written outline of what comes next. This letter should go hand-in-hand with a termination meeting, where you will meet with the employee to discuss the details of the termination and allow them to ask questions.

Also, as we’ll go over in a moment, you can extend extra benefits and go over them during the termination meeting.

Here’s how we recommend you start your termination letter:

Remember, this is just a sample of what to say. You can always make it more personal in the introduction. If you feel comfortable, you can say something along these lines: 

Whenever possible, you should also state the reason for the termination simply and clearly, breaking it down as much as you’re able (within reason). You may just want to say that there is a poor cultural fit, such as: 

Remember, this shouldn’t be the first time an employee has heard about this issue. You should have already done everything within your power to resolve the issue and retain the employee. Termination is generally a last-resort measure when nothing else has worked out.

To help you explore alternative options for managing your workforce dynamics before resorting to firing someone, click below to download our free, comprehensive guide on workforce planning.

After you make a simple, straightforward introduction, your termination letter should move on to what the employee needs to know about their pay and benefits.

This section is relatively easy because it doesn’t need to have any extra components to it. If you have a proper RIF strategy in place, you should already fully understand how pay and benefits work when an employee is offboarded.

All you need to do is list them out in your letter in a way that’s easy to understand. Remember, you will also be able to go over these things in greater detail in the termination meeting.

This section can look something like this:

This section will depend on what benefits your company offers. You may provide more or less than what we’ve listed in our sample above. Make sure that you go over all of the benefits you are offering and explain them in the simplest way possible.

The third and final section of your termination letter is by far the easiest. All you need to do is sign off the letter and provide a way for the employee to reach out with any questions.

This section can look something like this:

Now, as we’ve said, this letter should be supplementary to your termination meeting, which can go over everything in this letter in greater detail. 

Also, and we can’t say this enough, none of these letters are one-size-fits-all. You need to customize them to fit your needs and specific situation.

The one big difference between a termination for poor behavior or misconduct and termination for not being a good fit  is that the latter is a lot more like a layoff.

Usually, a firing is viewed as a voluntary termination because the action causing their termination was  voluntarily done by the employee. A layoff, on the other hand, is an involuntary termination because the employee has no control over the cause.

The same can be said for ‘not a good fit’ employees. It’s not entirely their fault that they were brought into a team that they just don’t mesh well with. That’s more a problem of poor hiring than it is of the person who got mixed up in it.

For this reason, we often recommend offering these individuals termination benefits that you normally wouldn’t offer to someone being fired.

The best thing to include is a well-rounded and well-crafted severance package that allows you to not only cover your legal bases, but also provide the employee with a payment in exchange for their signature that will help support them through the transition to a new role.

Calculating the right severance payment can range from simple to complex, depending on your approach. Most commonly, severance is determined based on an employee’s salary and tenure with the company. To simplify this process, we’ve created an easy-to-use severance pay calculator to help you determine an appropriate payout based on industry standards.

Inside your severance package, we also recommend that you provide outplacement services. As a refresher, outplacement is a service extended to outgoing staff members that helps them get back to work in a new, meaningful role quicker and with less stress.

The best outplacement providers use expert coaches, cutting-edge technology, and robust learning platforms to help their participants land a new role. You can learn all about the outplacement process here.

Let’s put all of this together into one sample termination letter for ‘not a good fit’ employees. Remember to customize this example with the details, policies, and tone of your specific situation and organization.

When crafting a termination letter to offboard employees who are not a good fit, you can generally use a normal termination letter that goes over all of the key points of your termination policy.

Make sure that you keep the letter short and to the point, underlining the benefits that will be extended to the staff member and how they will be paid. Consider offering more benefits to those being let go for lack of good fit, including a severance agreement and outplacement services.

As with any reduction event, make sure that you work closely with your legal team to ensure that you are complying with all local, state, and federal laws.

Using a sample termination letter for ‘not a good fit’ employees can help the process go more smoothly by having an easily customizable letter on file that is ready when you need it.

If you’re ready to find the right outplacement firm to help you successfully protect your organization’s reputation while supporting your impacted employees through your next reduction event, click below to speak with one of our experts and learn more about Careerminds’ industry-leading outplacement offerings.