He can fire him, but not without the risk of being sued. I think his dilemma is salvaging the time/investment he made into the employee who basically is his right hand man. A person like that is difficult if not impossible to replace.
He's a logical thinker, but his employee is pretty shady to want to stay around and not quit and seems to be quite arrogant. This can be an advantage.
The wife won't get shit. She is the one who had the affair.
The right choice and most difficult choice is to keep him around. It's likely he is still reliable in terms of the company and vital for his day to day operations.
It is extremely for him to take a new stance with his employee though. Make sure you document in writing all the mistakes or problems you have here on out (Extremely Important). Start looking for a replacement, and have the employee start going through day to day operations.
This will stop the employee from stepping all over his boss. Realizing he can be replaced is important especially since the guy seems to not have respect for his boss.
This will put him in his place and he'll have the choice to step up and outperform or make mistakes that puts him in a situation where there is just cause to fire him.
The best case scenario would be for his employee to quit on his own so that he doesn't have have to give severance pay, health insurance or unemployement. This is what usually happens.
You could also cut his hours etc, other ways to get him to leave without having to fire him.
He's a logical thinker, but his employee is pretty shady to want to stay around and not quit and seems to be quite arrogant. This can be an advantage.
The wife won't get shit. She is the one who had the affair.
The right choice and most difficult choice is to keep him around. It's likely he is still reliable in terms of the company and vital for his day to day operations.
It is extremely for him to take a new stance with his employee though. Make sure you document in writing all the mistakes or problems you have here on out (Extremely Important). Start looking for a replacement, and have the employee start going through day to day operations.
This will stop the employee from stepping all over his boss. Realizing he can be replaced is important especially since the guy seems to not have respect for his boss.
This will put him in his place and he'll have the choice to step up and outperform or make mistakes that puts him in a situation where there is just cause to fire him.
The best case scenario would be for his employee to quit on his own so that he doesn't have have to give severance pay, health insurance or unemployement. This is what usually happens.
You could also cut his hours etc, other ways to get him to leave without having to fire him.