When you do have to terminate an employee, you need to have a plan, especially if the firing comes too late and is rushed. Rushed firings can leave you picking up the pieces…which is why you need the plan. Thus, it makes sense to focus upon what to do after termination:

• The first decision: it is not uncommon to require a loan officer to separate the day of termination. There is fear that the loan officer will not act in the best interests of the company as there are bound to be hard feelings. So, you must decide whether to ask them to stay/and or leave. Either way, there should be care taken to limit hard feelings and not to burn bridges.
• Customers come first: above all else, it is the customers who must be thought of first. Therefore, no matter whether the terminated employee is getting paid on his/her pipeline of existing loans or not, the customer must be contacted to let them know about the separation. The communication must include assurances they will be taken care of and new contact information given.
• The customer is always right, but... : some customers may take advantage of the fact that their contact is no longer part of the company. It will not be unusual for a customer to “claim” that the loan officer promised something they did not. Make sure you get both sides of the story and if the customer is right, you must support the claim even if it will cost you money or other resources.
• Take care of the little things: termination timing, pipeline management and getting the loans closed are all important. However, there are many other details that must be taken care of. For example, keys and laptops must be collected. The email account and voicemail should be forwarded immediately and access to the company “intranet” should be turned off. It should also be determined if the loan officer should be able to receive data from their personal database if there is a CRM provided by and administered by the company.

As I have mentioned, a manager tends to spend up to 80% of their time supervising the wrong people and the opportunity costs they incur as a result are very, very significant. They are incurred to try and accomplish something that is impossible: trying to make the wrong people into the right people. And even when you conclude that you have the wrong person and are ready to make a move, that move must be planned carefully.

Dave Hershman is Senior VP of Sales of Weichert Financial and the top author in the mortgage industry. Dave has published seven books, as well as hundreds of articles and is the founder of the OriginationPro Marketing System and Mortgage School – the online choice for expert mortgage learning and marketing content. His site is www.OriginationPro.com and he can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..