Disciplinary Action: Importance for HR and Best Practices

Disciplinary action is crucial for handling inappropriate workplace behavior and ensuring a productive environment. This article outlines effective HR steps for implementing fair and constructive disciplinary measures.

By Brad Nakase, Attorney

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Table of Contents

1. Why is disciplinary action important for HR?

2. Examples of actions that warrant disciplinary action

3. Examples of disciplinary actions

4. Best practices for disciplinary action policies

5. To sum up

Why is disciplinary action important for HR?

Taking disciplinary action is crucial to handling inappropriate behavior at work. Even if it could be uncomfortable, creating a workplace where individuals want to work is essential. Discipline policies not only justify forced dismissals, but they also assist in creating a secure and efficient work environment.

Let’s examine the steps HR may take to ensure that disciplinary actions are handled as effectively as possible.

An employee is hired with the expectation that they will uphold a specific standard of performance and abide by all company laws, policies, and procedures. Corrective measures a corporation takes when an employee exhibits problematic behavior or fails to achieve performance standards are known as employee disciplinary actions.

The goal of disciplinary action is to make the employee behave properly while recording the problems in case they recur. Put another way, the main objective of disciplinary action is not to penalize the worker.

Human resources may play a different role during workplace disciplinary action depending on the company and its resources.

For instance, HR is only involved in more severe disciplinary actions in certain organizations. They might attend every disciplinary hearing in other organizations. HR oversees formalizing the processes for handling violations of the company’s policies and defining the disciplinary action policy in both situations. These rules are typically described in the employee handbook.

Examples of actions that warrant disciplinary action

Even though your company has its own standards for acceptable and unacceptable workplace conduct, the following are some instances of actions that are not appropriate in any business:

Employee misbehavior

This is a broad term that encompasses both gross and general forms of employee misconduct. Acts of general misconduct do not intend to harm other people or the organization. Examples include smoking in a designated non-smoking area and disobeying a manager’s instructions. There’s no need to fire someone for this kind of behavior right away.

On the other hand, gross misconduct frequently results in immediate termination. This includes actions like intentional property harm or theft.

Sexual harassment

Workplace sexual harassment is characterized as any unwelcome sexual activity that makes a person feel depressed, afraid, outraged, or ashamed. While sexual harassment is prohibited in the US, the offender is not necessarily fired because of it.

Discrimination

When an individual is treated differently or poorly at work due to their gender, color, sexual orientation, faith, pregnancy, or other traits, this is known as workplace discrimination. Both between employees and between employers, it is possible for discrimination to occur. An official non-discrimination policy aids in the battle against workplace discrimination.

Problems with absenteeism

Absenteeism at work can take many different forms, but in its most basic form, it refers to an employee failing to report for duty on time. While missing work owing to sickness or an emergency is common, absenteeism is primarily unintentional and frequently occurs without warning. It can become a serious issue when it affects other employees’ jobs.

Employee burnout and bad management are two fundamental workplace problems frequently indicated by absenteeism.

Work results

Disciplinary action may be taken against an employee for failing to meet or maintain work performance standards set by the organization concerning their job duties. Inadequate work output is not caused by outside variables like illness that keep a worker from working.

Managers’ and the team’s support might occasionally help underperforming employees improve. Other times, though, performance concerns are a symptom of more significant difficulties like disengagement or job dissatisfaction.

Bullying at work

Bullying at work refers to focused actions that are aimed against one or more individuals. It can occur between employers and employees or only between employees. Bullying is meant to cause offense, ridicule, or intimidate and can take the form of physical or verbal abuse.

Here are a few examples:

Intense performance monitoring
Verbal abuse or slurs directed at other workers
Harsh criticism in public
The purposeful exclusion of particular people from team activities or meetings

Lateness

When an employee shows up but is frequently late, it is called tardiness instead of absenteeism, which occurs when they do not show up. Unexpected events make it inevitable for someone to arrive late for work frequently. On the other hand, persistent tardiness can lower team morale and call for remedial action.

Examples of disciplinary actions

Employers can choose from a variety of disciplinary measures. Rather than punishing the employee, the objective is to address subpar performance or conduct by determining the issues, root causes, and workarounds.

Generally, a policy of gradual discipline is implemented. This implies that when an employee doesn’t make the necessary corrections after being given the chance, the corrective actions start out as the least severe and progressively get more serious.

Here are a few examples:

A verbal warning is a procedure whereby a manager or supervisor discusses issues with an employee’s conduct, behavior, or general job performance. It is usually sufficient if it is the team member’s first offense or if the problem is small.

A written warning: This type of warning informs the employee about their misbehavior at work through a written document. Typically, a formal reprimand will outline the potential repercussions for team members who fail to improve their behavior.

Removal of privileges: Poor employee behavior, such as driving a company car carelessly, using a business credit card excessively, or acting too rowdily at work gatherings, may occasionally be linked to specific rights. In these situations, an employer may decide to revoke the employee’s entitlement to those benefits to prevent problems from occurring in the future.

A performance improvement plan (PIP): A PIP, which is more prevalent when a team member receives a negative performance assessment, may be the employee’s first course of action in certain situations. A PIP aims to provide clear goals that a person must accomplish to stay on the job and prevent a transfer, demotion, or termination.

Reeducation: Employees may require retraining as a disciplinary action if their poor performance stems from a failure to understand their obligations or a tendency to make mistakes. Written exams, online courses, and reviewing the company’s policies and procedures could all be part of the retraining strategy. The retraining objectives must be explicit and should include measurable results.

Demotion: A demotion occurs when a worker’s position, function, or duties are reduced within the company. This reassignment may be made temporarily or permanently to improve performance or conduct. It is frequently employed as a substitute for terminating a worker. Demotions, however, may cause a worker to feel unappreciated and demotivated, which may worsen their already subpar work.

Pay reduction: A pay cut refers to a decrease in an employee’s earnings, including their hours worked, benefits, or salary. It goes beyond only receiving money as compensation. Pay reductions are a complex form of disciplinary punishment since they must comply with local and federal rules, particularly the US Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Suspension: An organization can keep a team member on staff but urge them to refrain from working or participating in job-related activities. This is known as a disciplinary suspension. Generally, the employee is compensated during this period unless a provision in their employment contract permits their employer to suspend them without pay. This frequently occurs when someone is the subject of an HR inquiry and is asked to leave their job until the investigation ends.

Termination: Termination is the last resort if an employee has engaged in egregious misconduct, or the preceding disciplinary actions fail to produce the desired results. Every country has unique termination policies and safeguards that must be met before an employee may be let go.

Best practices for disciplinary action policies

One of the most difficult parts of human resources might be disciplining employees. Encouraging the team and recording the disciplinary procedure from the start are the best strategies to position the HR department for success. The following best practices can help your HR team get started:

Conduct a human resources inquiry

Conducting an HR inquiry is crucial when handling grave concerns such as harassment, bullying, or egregious misconduct. To ensure you can address the matter and implement the necessary disciplinary measures, you must investigate.

You also ensure that everyone is treated fairly and that all your workers are working in a safe atmosphere.

Establish guidelines for progressive discipline

You must specify what will happen if certain undesirable behaviors occur. For instance, you might impose a three-strike policy for certain acts and immediately terminate others.

Make sure you understand the purpose of every action, and remember that it should be to fix the behavior rather than to punish the individual.

Explain your policy on disciplinary action

Workers must understand what actions will result in disciplinary action inside your company. It could be a good idea to add specific instances to your policy. Give an example of what your firm would consider misconduct.

Make the disciplinary policy available in the employee handbook or internal company sites. You may also want to ask the managers to discuss the rules with their team members or mandate that the reading be done.

Describe the process for appealing the ruling

Employees need to understand the process and procedures for appealing a disciplinary decision. Additionally, you need to let them know that even after you’ve made up your mind, you still want to hear their side of the story and that you take them seriously.

Teach managers

Suppose a manager doesn’t apply the same methods for disciplining an employee as they do for another team member. In that case, you risk being sued for discrimination and unfair treatment.

As an HR specialist, you are responsible for instructing management on the disciplinary action plan and its application. You must also ensure that they use it appropriately and consistently. To do this, schedule frequent manager training sessions and set up an accessible method for reviewing disciplinary reports.

Keep a record of your disciplinary measures

Keeping records of everything will enable you to manage employee punishment progressively and establish a legally sound procedure. Ensure that everything is stored in a safe employee file.

Continue to update the policy

Review your disciplinary action plan regularly to ensure it is still appropriate. If not, consider adding or removing elements. For instance, when implementing a hybrid or remote configuration, you may want to provide examples of undesirable behaviors, like bullying or harassment, in a virtual environment.

To sum up

For all parties concerned, disciplinary action is not a pleasant experience. Nonetheless, you can make sure that you can handle the situations justly and openly by having an open disciplinary action plan that outlines unacceptable behaviors and the necessary actions.

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