Role economics for the hire; a documentation and timing-risk checklist for the exit. All computation happens in your browser — nothing about the person or the role is stored unless you save it.
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The hire decision and the termination decision are both economics problems wrapped in risk problems, and small companies routinely get the wrap wrong. On the hiring side, the number that matters is the fully-loaded cost — payroll taxes, benefits, tooling, recruiting, and the management time the role consumes — measured against what the role actually adds: revenue, capacity, or risk reduction. For a company watching runway, every hire is also a burn decision: a role that pencils out on annual numbers can still be wrong if it takes three months of runway with it. Sometimes the honest answer is a contractor for a season, or waiting a quarter; this helper's HIRE mode runs those comparisons side by side and recommends hire, contract, or wait.
The termination side is where informality gets expensive. TERMINATE mode builds a documentation checklist — expectations set, issues recorded with dates, warnings given, consistency with how similar situations were handled — and screens for the risk flags that should always trigger a call to employment counsel before action: timing close to protected activity, potential protected-class optics, group terminations that may approach federal or state WARN thresholds, and state-specific final-pay deadlines that in some states run as fast as the last day worked. When any flag fires, the tool says so plainly and gates its checklist behind the recommendation to get counsel involved.
This is general management guidance, not legal advice — employment law is state-specific and fact-specific, and no calculator substitutes for counsel on a contested exit. What the tool does provide is structure: the economics made explicit before a hire, and the documentation and timing questions asked before an exit, while there is still time to fix what is missing. Everything runs in your browser; nothing about the person or the role is stored unless you save it.
The fully-loaded cost typically includes employer payroll taxes, benefits, equipment, software seats, recruiting fees, and management overhead — commonly 1.25x to 1.4x base salary for US employees. Comparing that number, not the salary, against expected revenue or capacity impact is what makes the hire-versus-contract decision honest.
When the need is genuinely temporary, the skill is specialized, or runway is short enough that a fixed commitment is risky. The tool compares fully-loaded employee cost against contractor cost for the same capacity — but classification itself is a legal question with state-specific tests, so confirm it with counsel.
A record of expectations communicated, specific performance or conduct issues with dates, prior warnings or improvement plans, and consistent treatment relative to similarly situated employees. Gaps in any of these are the classic inputs to wrongful-termination exposure.
A termination shortly after a protected activity — a complaint, a leave request, a workers' compensation claim — invites a retaliation claim regardless of the true reason. The tool flags timing risk so you can involve employment counsel before acting, not after.
The federal WARN Act generally covers employers with 100 or more employees and requires 60 days' notice for mass layoffs and plant closings meeting its thresholds. Several states have mini-WARN acts with lower triggers — group terminations need a counsel review before announcement.