On the other hand, at-will employment == no need for a reason (or employee handbook). From Wikipedia:

"any hiring is presumed to be "at will"; that is, the employer is free to discharge individuals "for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all," and the employee is equally free to quit, strike, or otherwise cease work."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

I'm not a lawyer, but, my gut feeling is that if you are in an at-will jurisdiction the easiest way to fire is to simply do a "I regret we have to let you go" firing with no explanations. Why do I say this? Because opening your mouth beyond that could open you up for liability and the labor department is as anti-business as can be.

I had a really bad experience with a sales guy I hired some time ago. The standard deal was 90 days probation. We signed a very detailed contract upon employment that spelled out the terms. The contract was authored by my attorney and was fully legal in California. The basics of it were that he would get an advance on commissions as part of his weekly pay.

This is common practice with sales people. In order to provide them with a minimum stable income you state their base pay and then negotiate an advance on future commissions. The idea is that once they start selling they pay you back for the advance. In this case, the advance was $1,000 per week. Put another way, he owed me $1,000 per week and had to pay it back out of future sales commission. It's a trust relationship: I give you money you have not earned trusting that you'll work hard to repay it and actually earn beyond that.

To clarify, this sales person was not getting paid $1,000 per week. His weekly paycheck included a base salary plus the $1,000 advance.

Well, he sold a net total of $0 in six months of employment. I should have let him go at the 90 day period but that would have been the holiday season and, back then, I was a sucker for not doing that to people with families. I've been on the receiving end of loosing my job at the end of the year and just didn't want to do that to others. Fucking sap I was.

I had a stern talk with him and wished him happy holidays.

Once back he didn't sell a thing for three more months. I let him go and gave him a full explanation as to why. I also did the math and figured out that he owed me nearly $26K in unearned commissions. Keep in mind, this was a loan, from me to him, based on the agreement that he would pay it back as he started to earn commissions from sales.

Again, being a fucking sap, I told him that I would simply not pay him his last two weeks and be done with it. That amounted to recovering just a few thousand dollars.

A couple of months later I find myself in a hearing at the Labor Board. Contract in hand, I assume that this is a done deal. I produced the signed multi-page contract. He admitted to knowing all about it and understanding the terms. I presented a balance sheet showing the math and that he owed me over twenty thousand dollars but was willing to call it even and move on. We would hear the decision within two weeks of the hearing.

Two weeks later I get a letter ordering me to pay him $5,000!

I consulted with my attorney. He said that we could go after the labor board for failing to honor a legally binding contract and win. However, he said, this is going to cost you far more than $5,000. Ten times that much, if you are lucky. "Pay the guy and move on". So I did and learned a few very valuable lessons.

This, BTW, to get a little political, is one of the ways votes are bought in this country. We hear of corrupt regimes in other countries. It's the same here, but with different techniques. In this case, the Democratic party ensures voter loyalty by playing games like this one (favoring labor, unions, government workers, etc.). That guy, the ace sales guy, will remember the extra five grand he got at my expense and will bend over backwards to support the party who got him that. The problem is that they don't understand (voters and party) that they are destroying jobs.

President Obama is a cool guy, but if someone from another planet were to draw conclusions based on his speeches they'd conclude that the only important people in the US are "teachers, police, fireman and construction workers", or, put another way "unions, unions, unions, and unions". Crock of shit.

Having a manual might be a good idea. An even better idea is to have a good relationship with your attorney. In some industries you will need him/her often. Thankfully this was a corner case for me. I've never had other issues with the people I've hired. Most professionals are exactly that, responsible and hard working pros. I am quite liberal with my relationship with those who work for me when we all behave as responsible pros. For example, one time I encouraged my marketing manager to take a paid week off to go see a band she loved in the UK. That paid week did not come out of her vacation time. I paid for it because she was doing a good job and thought it'd be nice to show my appreciation this way. I am happy to say that I have many examples like that.