There is nothing harder than recognizing that one of your employees is not working out. You know that something has to be done. And chances are, others know too.

Some managers refuse to confront the problem, preferring instead to make life miserable for the employee, hoping they will quit.

These conversations are always difficult. Learning how to coach someone out of the company instead of FIRING them is a skill few managers few managers have. If you become proficient at coaching them out, you will seldom have to resort to firing someone.

Here are some techniques that work in most situations.

1. Assuming it is a performance issue, the conversation should be only about the lack of performance. A key here is that you must have ALL the facts, it should not be subjective. If you don’t have the facts, the entire discussion becomes about personal issues. The other important ingredient is that the person needs to have understood the performance or activity requirements of the job. In other words, you cannot have this conversation if the person can legitimately claim that they did not understand what was expected of them. By having accurate facts at your disposal, it makes the discussion more about performance and less about the person. The end result should be something like—”Mr. Employee, you understand that we have set these standards and for whatever reason, your performance is below accepted levels. If your performance does not improve within this time frame, I will assume that you have determined the standards are out of your ability or reach. In that case, I think we can both agree that you should find a place more suitable for your skills.” Basically, the person has fired themselves by not achieving your standards.

2. The term ‘coaching’ implies a certain amount of advice-giving, or a generally helpful attitude. One cannot be manipulative here, but you may be able to offer a unique perspective for the employee that they are not getting from others in their support groups. Now is the time to gently discuss how their skills don’t seem to working out in this job. It does not make them a ‘bad person’ but even they must feel or recognize that their performance is not acceptable. Since they are trying to do the right thing, which assumes they are giving it a legitimate try, the only conclusion you can make, as their manager, is that their true skills are not being utilized. Perhaps, therefore, they should figure out a place where they might better be used. Or words to that effect.

3. Another technique would be to ask them for their own solutions to the problem. If you can get agreement on the lack of performance standards, maybe together you can both work out a plan to improve. I have seen this work out great. Previous discussions about performance have not been viewed as important as this one. When so confronted, some employees on the bubble have seen the light, as it were, and made great strides in improvements.

4. A final technique is to allow the person to go home early “to think about it.” Ask them to come back on Monday or the next day, with their plan for improvement. Just be sure they understand what you expect, and that ‘their plan’ must acknowledge their shortcomings but be focused on performance changing characteristics. This technique almost always works. I am not sure why, it is a bit like being sent to the principal’s office to think about it, I suppose.

What ways have worked for you?