Arrange for your meeting to be in a private place. It is likely that the process of being fired will be upsetting or embarrassing enough for the employee, without having the whole office watch through the glass wall of the conference room.

Be frank with your reasons for firing the employee. Do not say "well, jeez, I think you are making a good effort but it just doesn't seem like I am seeing the results I need." A statement like this will only give the employee false hope that he might have a second chance and may provide fodder for a subsequent lawsuit if he feels like you weren't telling him the real reasons he was being fired.

Ask for the employee's keys or access cards to the building. If the employee is calm and collected it will likely not be harmful to allow him or her to collect personal items and say goodbye to co-workers. However, if you feel that terminated employees may be disruptive, or may harm other individuals, escort them to their desks or work stations and make sure that they safely leave the building. If you are concerned that they may come back to the building to cause further trouble, consider alerting building security, or changing the locks and access codes to ensure they can no longer gain entrance.

Post-firing considerations. Once the hard task of firing an employee is over, your work is not done. Take care not to disparage the employee in front of his or her former co-workers. An attitude like that will rarely be perceived as professional and can be a serious deterrent to employee morale, particularly if the employee was well-liked by co-workers.