Termination of employee contracts may occur through a number of ways. You may realize that a staff member has not met expectations, or an employee may choose to move on to other opportunities. While not all reasons for staff to leave are negative, an employee departure can be tense and stressful. Nobody wants to see tears in the office and a fired employee clears their desk, watched by their co-workers. Additionally, employers shouldn't feel bad about having to let underperforming staff members go; as long as the justification is there, the process should be straightforward. So what's the best way to make sure that firing an employee is not a headache? Hopefully, with a few internal HR processes in place, your growing business can manage this period smoothly.

According to Dubai-based lawyer Attorney Devanand Mahadeva, as long as both parties adhere to the UAE law regarding warnings and acceptable causes of termination of the contract, "companies do not need to go through legal procedures to terminate an employee's contract." He also says that in most cases, "legal processes will have to be put in place if there is a financial issue as a result of the termination."

End of Service benefits should also follow the UAE labor law, although generally the regulations should be clearly outlined in the employee contract.

Step 1. Get your documents in order. If an employee's contract is finishing in a couple of months and you are set with not renewing it, make sure you go through a debriefing process and that all their company-related papers are handed back to the company. The same goes for staffers who have given their leaving notice. If you are firing an employee, be sure you have solid paper trail to justify your decision and help you build a definitive case.

Make sure you provide copies of any relevant papers to the departing employee. To be safe, go over these papers with a lawyer to ensure they cannot be used in a lawsuit against you at any point in time. If the employee is leaving on good terms, it's a good gesture to offer writing a letter of reference or recommendation.

Step 2. Prepare for the End of Service Packages

Calculations of end of service packages or gratuity pay should have been clearly outlined in the employee contract you and your staff signed upon employment. According to Article 132 of the UAE Labor Law, "a worker who has completed one or more years of continuous service shall be entitled to severance pay at the end of his employment."

The severance pay shall be calculated as follows:

- 21 days of wages for each of the first five years of service

- 30 days of wages for each additional year of service (provided always that the aggregate amount of severance pay should not exceed two year's wage)

According to Article 134, "severance pay shall be calculated on the basis of the wage last due, but shall not include whatever is given in kind, housing allowance, transport allowance, travel allowance, overtime pay, representation allowance, cashier's allowance, children's education allowance, allowance for recreational and social facilities and any other bonus or allowances."

Step 3. Schedule an items handover

Make sure to have a checklist of important office equipment (i.e. laptops, phones, office keys, car keys) that a departing employee must hand back to the company. Notify the employee when they should do this. The list may include sensitive company literature such as sales figures and client lists. You may also choose to include changing account passwords to this list for the employee's office email and other software accesses.

Step 4. Exit Interview

An exit interview may sound like an archaic HR step but it can provide valuable information on how the company can improve in its staff relations, and in its general business operations. Ideally, an HR officer would conduct this interview so the employee can feel more comfortable about giving honest feedback. However, it does depend on your previous rapport with the employee.

© Zawya BusinessPulse 2013