Get Consistent with Discipline
One reason that employers get into legal trouble with their employees is inconsistent discipline and inconsistent reasons for termination. For guidance on getting consistent, as well as wording you should not have in your employee handbook, keep reading.
Get Consistent with Discipline
What’s your discipline and termination procedure? Whatever you or any one of your supervisors feels like at the moment? Which means you and they won’t always be consistent?
The danger of an inconsistent, fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants approach to discipline and termination is this: Inconsistency increases the chances you will lose unemployment cases, and trigger and lose discrimination cases and wrongful discharge lawsuits.
The advantages of having a written policy in your handbook on a discipline and termination procedure are — you and all your supervisors and managers:
- Agree on a common approach, and
- Know where to look to refresh your memory and stay consistent.
Generally, discipline policies tell employees what kinds of behavior or violations of rules will result in what kinds of discipline.
Example: You establish three levels of misbehavior (most serious, serious, less serious) and list examples of each. And you establish levels of discipline, depending on the violation (first an oral warning, then a written warning, then a suspension — with or without pay, and finally termination).
And you include qualifying language. Something like this:
“If you engage in behavior seriously detrimental to the interests of your employer, or have repeated violation of rules and policies, your employer may terminate you immediately.”
Most important: If you put your discipline policy in writing, be certain you and your supervisors and managers follow it.
If you ignore it with some employees, but apply it with others, you run the costly risk of losing unemployment, discrimination and wrongful discharge actions.
