41+ Sample Termination Letter Templates
Although most employers would rather hire than fire, termination letters are necessary to end an employment for various different reasons—whether it’s a layoff, poor performance, violation of company rules or other causes deemed basis for termination by the company. A termination letter contains information about the reasons why you’re ending an individual’s employment and states other details and conditions about the termination.
On this page, we offer you different sample templates of Termination Letters that you can download and use for your business. These templates can also be used as a reference in case you wanted to create a more personalized termination letter that is just right for your business. In case you want to use these templates, the details indicated in each one of these are editable so you can easily replace them with your own information. So, browse now and find what you need.
Free Termination Letter Template for Poor Performance
Free Termination Notice Letter Template
Free Termination of Services Letter Template to Client
Free Simple Termination Letter Template
Free Rental Termination Letter Template
Free Job Termination Letter Template
Free Employee Termination Letter Template
Free Contract Termination Letter Template
Free Business Contract Termination Letter Template
Contract Termination Letters
Service Contract Termination Letter
Vendor Contract Termination Letter
Contract Termination due to Poor Performance
Contract Termination to Customer
Basic Employment Contract Termination
Lease Termination and Remedies Letters
Landlord Lease Termination Notification Letter
Letter for Termination of Residential Lease
SCRA Lease Termination
Employment Termination Letters
Employment Contract Termination Letter with Notice
Employment Termination Verification Letter
Employment Termination Confirmation Letter
Reasons for Termination
Firing an employee can either be a pleasant or an unpleasant task for any employer. It’s either relief to for an underperforming employee or a regret to layoff productive employees for reasons that are inevitable. Here are some reasons why employers terminate employees.
- Layoff. A termination letter is needed when a company needs to reconstruct or downsize its personnel for reasons such as lack of work, finance or material. It can be temporary or permanent, depending on how the company recovers from such crises.
- End of contract. A contract termination letter is provided when an employee’s contract with the company without a consideration of rehiring the employee. This letter is also used when a company decides to end its relationship with a business partner.
- Causes for termination. Even if most employments are “at-will”, it’s not easy for employers to fire people without any cause. Therefore, reasons such as noncompliance with company rules or insubordination are inexcusable grounds for termination for cause.
- Poor performance. An employee’s performance is the driving force of any business. So, if an employee is not able to perform his or her duties and responsibilities towards the company, the employer has every right to subject the employee to termination.
- Poor attendance. Just like performance, the employee’s attendance is also one major factor in determining one’s productivity. If the employee fails to be present most of the time to do his or her job, he or she can also be subject to termination.
- Failure to improve. Despite efforts of training, coaching or mentoring employees to either learn a new task during a promotion or improve performance on a specific task given, an employee who fails to transition between such changes can be terminated, if not, demoted.
Types of Termination Letters
Based on the reasons mentioned above, different types of termination letters are generated as you can see on the Termination Letter Examples found on this page as well. Let us examine them one by one below.
- Employee Termination Letter. Perhaps the most popular use of termination letters, this letter for employees are given for numerous reasons such as company downsizing or poor employee productivity.
- Contract Termination Letter. Unlike employee termination letters, Contract Termination Letters are given to employees who ended their contract with the company which was agreed upon their employment.
- Lease Termination Letter. This is the type of letter which is used to terminate a lease of any property in case a boarder wants to leave or transfer. It is usually done by the property owner or landlord and the renter.
- Agency Termination Letters. This type of termination letter is used by companies to fire or end its relationships with agencies which used to represent the company or business. They can be advertising or marketing agencies.
- Business Termination Letter. This termination letter for businesses is used to end business-related relationships such as business agreements, contracts, partnerships, and even management services.
- Client Termination Letter. This termination letter is used to end a client’s subscription of certain services or products received from a company. This may be due to inactivity of an account or failure to pay such subscriptions.
- Patient Termination Letter. This type of letter is given to a hospital or medical practitioner’s patient in the event where they fail to comply with their financial obligations. This also indicates the end of the treatments they are receiving from the medical institutions.
- Service Termination Letter. This letter applies to companies or businesses who wish to terminate their contracts or relationship with its partners who provided services such as manufacturing, accounting, or marketing.
- Student Termination Letter. This termination letter for students are given in case the school deems the student unfit for its values and advocacy or when the student fails to pay for his or tuition fee to continue studying.
- Teacher Termination Letter. This type of letter is given to teachers or mentors of any educational institutions when a school decides not to accept any more enrollees and decides to close for many various reasons.
For other business-related letters, you may take a look at our compilation of Business Letter Templates.
Agency Termination Letters
Sample Text of Agency Termination
Sample Agent Termination
Business Termination Letters
Business Contract Termination
Termination of Business Management
Client Termination Letter
Sample Client Termination
Employee Termination Letters
Employee Contract Termination
Employee Termination
HR Termination Letter
Sample HR Termination
Job Termination Letter
Job Abandonment Termination
Medical Termination Letter
Medical Patient Termination
How to Write a Termination Letter
Just like how hard it is to fire an employee, writing a simple termination letter requires time and effort as you don’t want to let go of people for the wrong reasons. In order to make sure that you’re not making a wrong decision, follow these steps in writing a termination letter.
- Consult and seek guidance. Make sure you don’t fire a person based on emotions. Consult your employee guidebook to look for or confirm your grounds to terminate a certain employee. You have to ensure that the process in within the bounds of your company’s rules and legal standards.
- Document the problems. It’s not also wise to fire an employee based on gossip or hearsay. Even if the employee is obviously not fulfilling his or her job description, you need a tangible evidence of these failures or shortcomings so you can discuss it with them.
- Discuss with the employee. Before issuing a termination letter, it is polite to sit down with the employee to discuss and express your concerns. Listen to what they have to say and come up with a set of expectations to be filled if the employee still wishes to continue working with you.
- Be fair and firm. If the employee does not display any improvement within an agreed period of time, be firm in expressing your wish to end the company’s relationship with them. Also, make sure that the grounds are applicable to every employee in the organization.
- Be professional. Your work relationship should end up with a careful touch by maintaining a professional tone in your letter, even if the reasons may touch on some personal level. A termination letter does not need to delve into specific problem areas.
- Don’t forget other details. After stating the reasons for termination, don’t forget to include the next step of the process, whether they will receive benefits such as severance pay or when their current benefits will end. Also, state the date and amount of their final paycheck.
Another way to end an employment is through Resignation Letters written by employees instead of employers. This happens when the employee wishes to terminate his or her relationship with the company for different various reasons such as demotivation or compensation issues among others. So, don’t forget to check out our collection of Resignation Letter Templates and Examples as well.
Notice of Termination Letter
Tenancy Termination Notice Template
Notice of Lease Termination
Patient Termination Letters
Patient Termination Letter for Non Payment
Sample Patient Termination
Service Termination Letters
Sample Service Termination
School Bus Service Termination
Vendor Service Termination
Teacher Termination Letter
School Teacher Termination
Guidelines for Writing Termination Letters
Writing a termination letter can be a duanting task. You have to be careful what to include in your letter as it can be scrutinized by the employee, or worse, his or her lawyer in case your reasons come out as unjustified. So, here are some guidelines that you can use to write a strong and effective termination letter.
- Decide on what to leave in and what to leave out. One of the reasons why employers have to document every mishap the employee does which lead to his or her termination is to provide evidence for the reasons stated in the termination letter given. It is one way to state why you have come up to such decision with confidence and strength.
- State the existence of the “at-will” relationship. Most employment contracts have an “at-will” statement which declares that the employer can terminate an employee even without a reason. Even you have every right and reasons to fire the employee, you can remind them of the at-will-employment status.
- Deliver the news accurately. To prevent complaints regarding the termination of the employee, you must state factual reasons of the termination directly. You should provide references to the specific company policy that the employee violated as well as the previous disciplinary actions the employee fails to redeem.
- Explain unique problems. There may be issues that are unique to your company and may not be understood by the general working or employment industry, so make sure you explain these issues sufficiently. Include stipulations from the employment contract in order to demonstrate how the employee fail to address these conditions.
- Implement the termination. After presenting the termination letter to the intended person, implement the termination conditions such as the date of the end of service, when the final paycheck is available as well as how much the final check will be along with the benefits if there are any. It also includes the return of the company property issued to them.
- Avoid mention of a severance pay. If it’s possible, avoid mentioning the existence of a severance pay as it may be a sign of weakness and the amount may be a sign of insult to the employee. This can be discussed after the termination letter is issued to ensure that you position yourself on a strong ground upon negotiating with your ex-employee.
- End ties in a positive note. Termination letters do not need to be a negative thing as you can end ties with your employees by presenting a well-reasoned termination. It may, in turn, help these employees to grow and improve themselves in the next endeavor they might find themselves into.
While you are here, you can also check out other compilations of letter templates available on this website, such as Job Application Letter Samples and Email Cover Letter Templates and Examples.