As a farm family coach, I hear the struggles of farmers who are used to being able to quickly repair or fix problems that arise daily. When these hard-working, well-intentioned folks have a farming adult child who is not a good fit for the farm, great stress lingers far too long – the stress of them working on the farm and eventually firing a fam child off the farm.

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If you try to Google “how to fire your son or daughter on the farm” you get farm safety information or farm gas line explosion stories. The explosion that farms need tips on is how to fire a family employee graciously.

Psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein suggests that you may have resigned yourself to disrespect. Lack of respect is killing good farm businesses.

“You think that because your adult child has problems that lets them off the hook for showing heartfelt respect. You may notice that he or she seems respectful when wanting something from you. Your adult child, however, turns on a dime or gets passive-aggressive if you reframe that request. You feel worn down and accept this chaos as normal.” – Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein

It’s time to stop the chaos.

8 Essential Steps for Firing a Farm Child off the Farm

1. Get Perspective

You can get a perspective on your situation from a coach or mental health professional. Bad behaviour on farms that never goes away is an indicator that you have deep-rooted issues that need to be addressed. You are not to be bullied or manipulated by the emotional tornado that resides in your farming child. Communication is the key to managing the storm. While you are in the storm, it is a good idea to document in writing all the incidents that are a fore-shadow that your son or daughter is not a good fit for your farm team. You can do this in a notebook or on your computer word documents.

2. Set Clear Expectations

Be clear about what you expect from your employees – family and non-family. When the kids come back to the farm and start working again typically, there is no employee contract with job description, skill sets, or a farm meeting about expectations. This is a huge trap for future problems. If your son or daughter needs to find another place of employment, you are the manager and you need to act. Disrespect, passive-aggressive behaviour, and avoidance of work are all energy drains from your business.

3. Have the conversation.

At the beginning of the meeting tell your son that you are going to fire him. The conversation’s purpose is to be clear about the documented reasons that he is not a good fit as an employee of your farm business.  This step is after you have already given 3 warnings that they are not performing well and that losing a job on the farm may be a consequence if their performance does not improve.

4. Fire Your Son/Daughter with Dignity in a Private Area

Give your son/daughter the same respect and dignity you would any other employee. Have the conversation in a private space, with a closed door. It would also be wise to have your trusted advisor or spouse with you when you do this, as a witness to how you conducted the meeting.

5. Refer to Your Written Employment Agreement

During your meeting, refer back to your written agreements about employment on the farm, or the signed employee contract. Yeah right, Elaine, no one on our farm has a contract! Exactly. An employee contract states reasons why an employee can be dismissed. If a son or daughter never had a written job description or a performance appraisal, there are no criteria for what is expected!

If you would like some quick templates for farm appraisals, email me with “performance review” in the subject line. Dick Wittman has a great farm management guidebook that has job descriptions and many helpful templates for you for less than $220 CDN.

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6. Tell Your Employees When You Let a Family Employee Go

There will likely be a sense of relief that a person who was draining energy and creating much conflict drama on the farm is no longer working there. That person is, however, still a member of the farm family. This is where it gets complicated, as being fired from the farm means there will have to be lots of emotional work done to love the family member and continue family relationships. You don’t have to explain why you fired the person, but you do want to tell your team that gossip is not an option. Move on.

7. Consider Grief Counseling

Losing the dream of having family members on your farm team is hard. You will need to process the new reality of where your farm business is going, and you may feel guilty about not acting more quickly to address the poor performance and conflict. I remember Dr. John Fast talking about a son “Chip” who was fired. Dad said: “Chip you are fired from our team, but as your father, I will be happy to help you find another job.” The separation of the two systems – the family and the business – has to be done very consciously, and it is not easy.

8. Read Dr. Henry Cloud’s Book Necessary Endings.

You can find it here.

The next steps fall on the child that was fired from the farm. Here are a few things they need to consider.

1. What is really important to you now and what do you want to see happen?
2. What do you want your relationship to the family to look like when you leave the farm? You may want to do some healing work with a counselor and employment coach. You get to decide the healthy boundaries of the relationship. Your children need to have a connection to their grandparents. What baby steps can you take to build up the emotional bank account with your family?
3. What is your new income stream going to be, and where can you live? Update your resume, lots of folks need your farm labour skills.
4. Network with friends and build a support group for your transition.
5. Grieve your losses and celebrate your successes. Be curious about ways you need to change to be respectful and emotionally healthy in your next job.

I once had a young couple who fired themselves from their family farm, as they could not get along with the parents. They are now happily farming in a joint venture with a neighbour down the road, and they wrote me a wonderful letter to tell me how it all worked out. Getting fired is a transition. Improve and move on.

Farmers, Don’t Miss Out on Your Chance to Get Advice from Me!

If you are having trouble on your farm, you won’t want to miss these great upcoming events I have! On October 31^st, 2018, I will at a special luncheon for Discuss the Undiscussabull. Find out all about it here! Also, on November 7^th, 2018, I will be speaking during the Canadian Association of Farm Advisors (CAFA) Kickstarting the Farm Transition. You can find out more about it here!