Best Business Commentary

Firing under grace

If you have to drop the ax on someone, “there’s a right way—and plenty of wrong ones—to go about it,” says Lisa LaMotta in Forbes.com. First, you’d better fire your employee right. “Cross one of many lines and you could be staring at a lawsuit,” even if you have just cause. If warnings and coaching fail, “corral an HR director” for the meeting: it should be after work hours and no longer that 15 minutes. “Don't elaborate on the problems.” And don’t publicly start searching for a replacement before the firing. “Discretion is the better part of dismissal.”

Tapping the source of bottled water

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Bottled or not, “it’s water—companies don't make it, nature does,” says Thomas Kostigen in MarketWatch. So a California bill that would make bottlers list the source of their water—“spring, well, or municipal reservoir”—on the label seems fair. “Bottled-water makers, of course, aren’t pro label,” but telling us that we’re buying tap water probably won’t hurt their bottom line. After all, junk-food and cigarette makers “label their ingredients too.”