New York Giants football head coach Pat Shurmur was terminated
on "Black Monday" – the day following the end of
the regular professional football season that is notorious for
terminations. The night before Freddie Kitchens was fired as
head coach of the Cleveland Browns. Several days later, the Dallas
Cowboys parted ways with its head coach Jason Garrett. None of
these decisions to terminate employment were a surprise to anyone,
including the coaches. Each of the coaches compiled
lackluster records. NFL head coaches understand that winning a lot
of football games is a job expectation and losing too many games is
a terminable offense.
Terminations Should Not be a SurpriseOutside of
sports, however, the criteria used by employers to evaluate job
performance is seldom as objective as wins v. losses.
Nonetheless, a performance-based termination should never be
a surprise to the employee being let go. If properly managed,
employees should know what their roles are,
