hr corner A Good System for Discipline or Corrective Action
Dave Nichols Quality Transitions, Inc.
This is a continuing article in the series of human resource articles for The Anchor. My goal is to bring value to your organization in accomplishment of the Essentials of Human Resources. In past articles, we dealt with having a necessary proactive approach to discipline or corrective action. Hopefully, your organization has the appropriate documentation and communication systems in place for your work force that in the event you have to exercise discipline or corrective action you are in good shape. For this article, we want to discuss or review what a good discipline or corrective action system should consist of. In your employee handbook, you need to mention examples of work rules that need to be followed. In addition, you should communicate what happens if a work rule is broken. It is very important that we are consistent in doing this or you could be facing an unfair labor practice and possibly legal complications. A popular progressive/proactive system that employers have used for a number of years is a Corrective Action Process that consists of steps including a verbal corrective action, written corrective action, final written corrective action, and termination. This system gives the employee plenty of opportunities to correct problem behavior and at the same time, protects the employer. Also, there can be a disclaimer in the handbook that if the unacceptable behavior is extremely serious that the employer can go to any step in the cor-
rective action process to include termination. When an infraction takes place, typically there is a verbal corrective action. The supervisor needs to sit down privately with the employee and discuss the infraction. This should be done as soon as possible after the infraction has taken place. This needs to be documented with both parties signing off the document. Also included in the document should be a plan of action by the employee to correct the behavior while understanding that if it continues it could lead to more serious corrective action. If the behavior continues that affects performance, this leads in the next step to a written corrective action. Same principles take place as discussed with the verbal corrective action. If corrective action leads to a final written corrective action, there needs to be another supervisor present as a witness to the discussions as well as being included in the documentation. Follow the same principles as just stated. In addition, whoever takes responsibility for human resources administration needs to be kept informed of all developments. There are a lot of employers that take a further step during the final written corrective action stage and give the employee a final decision making leave that is paid (one-two days) to selfevaluate their situation and come back with a final decision to resign or understand that another infraction will lead to termination. They complete a written
The Anchor 20 Second Quarter, 2013