I'll go with your opinion being that it may be the best solution, but perfect it is not.
The mere fact that I don't even think it's the best solution means that there may very well be employees here who also don't, which means it's not perfect.
There will be employees who will hear "this fired person's stock was taken out of your end of year bonus". Because it kinda was. Especially at a small company where one employee-month plus their stock can be a significant portion of company yearly profits.
Doing it when the vestment date comes up just reeks of shortsightedness to the point of vindictiveness. Immaturity.
If it’s like the person quit but kept coming to work for the last month before vestment then talk to them and maybe offer to buy them out if they’ve got no good explanations.
Agreed. We don't have all the facts but management is not without blame.
> Doing it when the vestment date comes up just reeks of shortsightedness to the point of vindictiveness. Immaturity.
I've made my point repeatedly that the gains from paying it out are also shortsigted and may not be worth it, so no need to repeat.
Compensating people who don't deserve it pisses people off. Maybe those people are immature, but they do include your best performers too.
Like I said, no perfect solution. Management (arguably) caused the situation, and there's no perfect fix.
Agree that slackers ruin morale though. Currently going through this at my place. It’s especially difficult when merely being on the same team as slackers makes the external opinion of everyone on that team horrible. Some might know the better members but on average the reputation can be stained.