Making it difficult to fire ineffective people, or doing so slowly, is one of the best ways to ruin an organization. The friction that exists around firing in many countries seems to be part of why they have less effective business innovation and investment. Companies can&#x27;t hire someone without significant risk, because firing them will be difficult if they don&#x27;t work out, and so they&#x27;re averse to hiring. Meanwhile, poor performers stir dissatisfaction among other employees, especially effective ones. This makes it harder to start new companies and grow.<p>It&#x27;s preferable for both employee and employer have the right of free association. If it&#x27;s not working for either side, just end it. See &quot;‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups&quot; for a recent examination of this in startup hiring.<p>As organizations tend to grow larger, they tend to accumulate less effective people over time, since people tend to hire those who are less effective than themselves, rather than more effective. A counter-balance is necessary to preserve organizational effectiveness, which includes making it possible to fire genuinely ineffective people without a lot of hassle and drama. Some countries have truly ridiculous firing processes that involve a committee of one&#x27;s peers, and the whole nearby office gets dragged into one person&#x27;s poor performance.<p>Employers and employees don&#x27;t owe each other an obligation to keep providing compensation or labor. If a company is unfair in its management practices, and undervalues effective workers, then that company will flounder in the market compared to companies that value them appropriately. The problem will fix itself over time, without simultaneously saddling down fair and appropriate companies with the baggage of making it hard for them to fire their bad people.