Have you ever been in this situation?  You’ve got to fire an employee.  He simply can’t cut it.  You’ve tried to work with him.  You’ve given him coaching, counseling.  You should’ve fired him some time ago.  He’s not only doing a poor job.  Now, he’s hurting morale.  You’ve simply got to fire him.

But you don’t have any supporting documentation.  You meant to document his poor performance.  You meant to document those counseling or discipline sessions.  But you didn’t.  You’ll just have to take your chances, because you can’t put the firing off any longer.

A thought.  There may be some documentation.  Depending on what the employee’s job is, there may be production reports that show the employee was routinely way below the production quota.  There may be customer complaints.  There may be emails from co-workers bemoaning the employee’s failure to pull his weight.  There may be reports created by the employee that show his horrible communications skills are.  You get the idea.

There may be documentation–not yours–but still good documentation that supports a discharge.  When you think the documentation cupboard is bare and you’re in a pickle because you have to move forward with a termination, check another cupboard or two.  You may find some documentation a lot better than anything you could have done yourself.