Disciplinary Meeting
HR Mouse
53 Posts
Last Friday we had a situation with one of our "grumpiest" employees. He (allegedly) bad mouthed one of our customers, in great detail, to one of HIS customers who had come into our retail location to get some items. In turn that customer went to our customer (contractor/landscaper) and let him know what our employee said about him & his company & their practices. Needless to say our customer and his customer were extremely angry! Our customer (one of our biggest customers too) wanted answers as to WHY our employee would say all of that horrible stuff to anyone, let alone one of HIS customers who came into our location to pick up material. His supervisor agreed to have a meeting with him and the employee along with me and the locations (acting) manager. The customer showed up but the employee did not. The manager called our employee who was at home (at the time the meeting had already begun) and he said he was afraid he would lose his temper & decided not to show up for the meeting or his shift - which was scheduled at the same time. Also, when the employee was questioned about the conversation he had with the customer our our customer he denied it initially. Then he said he had the conversation, but doesn't remember any of the details. Then he said he never said those things to the customer and he was lying.
We weighed the evidence and heard what our customer had to say (he is a very understanding man in my opinion) and deducted that our employee DID in fact say somethings that were not in the best interest of our company and with our customer. And because he blew off our meeting we made a decision to suspend him and meet with him again on August 01st (today) to have him read the Disciplinary Form we completed and to discuss this matter further. On the phone (when we had to call him & let him know he was suspended) he said he was glad he was "getting a vacation" and said he doesn't know why we want to meet with him because no matter what he says we won't believe him in this "He said, he said" matter. We let him know that we DO want to hear his side of things and to gather all of that information during his suspension and to have it ready for the upcoming meeting - basically be ready to discuss this in full. We also let him know that he HAD the opportunity to give his side of things and discuss this to a resultion possibly that day, but he chose not to show up for the scheduled meeting and his shift immediately following.
Now this morning the Manager came to me & said they want a letter typed up to the employee outlining what we expect from him and what will happen if he doesn't comply. My question is, how different should this letter's content be compared to the "Write-Up Form" that we have already completed? The Write Up Form states why he is being disciplined and the Company Policies he broke, what the next step of action will be if he breaks these policies again, etc. Should I just summarize again? Would that be contradictory to the Form? Should he be asked to sign the letter (as well as the Form)?
Thanks
Comments
I wouldn't write a separate letter unless/until he signs the disciplinary form. Presumably, you have a standard disciplinary form that allows the employee to say whether or not they agree with the Company's statement and to make any reply they wish. The employee can't do that on a letter you hand them and those are important components of the process.
We use a Disciplinary Form which has the following sentences at the bottom:
"I have received and read this warning notice. I have been informed that a copy of this notice will be placed in my personnel file."
I actually downloaded it from this site (HR.BLR).
AND (no surprise to us) he refused to sign it saying (yelling actually) that he's not stupid and he knows that if he signs that goddamn piece of paper he's admitting guilt and agreeing to everything we say when it's all wrong, etc. etc.
The meeting did NOT go well - one of the first things out of his mouth was (in a very loud voice) "I wish we wouldn't have started this meeting because now I'm pissed! How stupid do you think I am?! How dare you try to pull this bullshit on ME! I used to be the CEO of a lawfirm and in charge of many people so why would I do anything as stupid as this?! I'm disgusted that you (using the company name) would not support me as one of your employees and take someone else's word for it over mine!" At that point the manager interjected stating that he chose not to show up for the meeting to even tell us his side and when he was originally approached by his supervisor he denied the whole thing. Then later he said something different, and then again something different and now again it's still different. So as a company we had to make a decision as to what most likely happened since we have 2 different stories. He continued to yell & scream & played the victim and again reitterated how "goddamn pissed off he is" about this stupid thing and then said he took his suspension as a well deserved vacation and he did not & never will look at it as a punishment. It got quite heated and we had to take control of the reigns several times. He is known for having an explosive, horrible temper and almost every member of our management team is afraid of him. As a matter of fact the manager of his dept was afraid to have him sign a form once because she said, "I'm afraid he'll beat me up." In my opinion he is a cancer to this company and now that I'm in charge of the disciplinary procedure I have no doubt that he will continue to "behave badly" and end up being terminated as a result of his own behavior.
Despite the fact that this employee continues to display bad behavior, I do have one comment. In my opinion, before a meeting with all of the people you mentioned, I think this employee's manager and HR should have sat down with him to get his side of the story. I think this ee is now acting the way he is as defense mechanism because he believes the company thought he was guilty without really getting his side of the story. Still, that does not mean that his behavior after the incident is helping things and it should not excuse that bad behavior.
In my experience there are normally at least 3 side to every story - the person being accused of something, the person telling on the accused and somewhere in the middle. It is our job to figure out the true story. I have had customers make complaints before. After the investigation was done the true story turned out to not be as bad as we thought. I have had other cases, where the true story was worse then we thought. I just think that giving the employee to tell his side of the story, before you get in front of the customer is a good way to show that you want to get the employee's side of things before a judgement is made.
I'm new at BLR but have worked in HR for a while... I do agree that HR should have sat down with the ee and had a "what happened" session and never set up a meeting with the ee and the customer together. I think cooling the customer is best left for customer relations, especially with an ee like the one described here!
But hind sight, even though the ee is feeling as though he has not been treated fairly he did have the opportunity to have his voice be heard at the meeting or have he should have gone to a member of managment and told his side of the story. Also, he has three strikes consdiering he 1. did not show up for the meeting, 2. did not show up for his scheduled shift and 3. was abusive and abrasive to you and other members of managment with his language and yelling this should be written up and placed in his ee file. His violent behavior should not be allowed to continue at your company, as he is bound to get your company sued.
Just my observation!
Oh trust me - we asked him to come in at a specific time to sit down with HR (me), his supervisor and our GM to get his side of the story & he refused to meet with us because he was too pissed off. He blew us off - we called him at home AFTER he was supposed to meet with us, he answered & couldn't have sounded more pleased that he kept us waiting. I told Management that he should not have to meet with our pissed off customer if he doesn't want to - that isn't something we can force him to do, but we told him that we wanted to meet with him to discuss this before we had to sit down with our customer. He didn't show - blowing us off & blowing off his scheduled shift.
Sorry, I should have clarified that. In the end, he told us yet a different story when he met with us on Friday - and honestly, I tend to believe our customer 80% & him maybe 10% - the other 10% I'm not so sure about........
As for the documentation on all of his past outbursts, etc. - no. This company didn't do ANYTHING at all about documentation, procedures, policies, etc. Nada. I was brought in to clear all of this up - so far it's an uphill battle, but I'm being as strong as possible! But he has been written up with the knowledge (written on the form) that the next time he breaks policies or "misbehaves" he outta here!
We have a guy that is a "hot-head" also it's a terrible situation and unfortunately not all that uncommon. I don’t know your company's discipline policy but I would follow it with this guy and get rid of him. He seems like the type of ee that will terminate himself quickly if documented properly, just give him some time and he will give you enough ammo!<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
It is so hard to get managers to properly document anything, they want you to fix the problem but when it comes right down to it there is no proof so your hands are tied.. I have been pushing and pushing my managers to document and they are getting better but some still just refuse so they are stuck with crap ee's. It sounds like you are in the same boat!
Exactly! They come to me after it's gone well beyond anything acceptable (when it has blown up basically) and want something to be done - always asking if they can terminate it seems - but we don't have one scrap of documentation. This guy I've been writing about has been here for 8 looooooong & terrifying years. He could have been let go after his first season with us, but everyone says they're afraid to even discipline him so they've swept it all under the rug over & over. Well, I've had enough and really don't see a need to keep this toxic & miserable EE around anymore. There are so many unemployed people out there right now that I'm sure will be actually & honestly be more than happy to work for us and, yes, BE HAPPY! In our industry especially there are so many looking for work.
Speaking of a Progressive Disciplinary Procedure - I'd like to revamp ours. Does anyone have a good Progressive Disciplinary Procedure all written up? Something we can give to our employees explaining that as a company we have made the decision to start regulating these things more and take this very seriously (blah, blah, blah - obviously we'll word it much better than this, but you catch my drift) and as a result we have now adopted this new Disciplinary Procedure. I think if I have it all by it's lonesome & go to management (including supervisors) with it & say, "Here. Here is what we are following from "this date"." I think ours currently is a bit too vague.....
I think in the long run that it was a mistake to address anybody or draw conclusions before speaking with the employee at the center of this issue. I would have a) disciplined him under attendance or insubordination or other appropriate policy for blowing off the meeting, b) disciplined him if he blew up in the meeting that would eventually be held, c) gotten his side of the story. If you play your cards right, you will have a green light to part company with this person and this specific incident will have nothing to do with it. All the bagage he carries around with him creates behavior problems that are significant and censurable.
Given that you did go ahead and write him up before getting his side, I would still discipline him again for the way he handled the situation. Also, his failure to sign the write up can be construed as insubordination in some states depending on what it is that he's being asked to sign. As long as he can say he doesn't agree and write a response on the document, you can force him to sign an acknowledgement of the document (not agreement with it) in most places. If you choose not to go in that highly-aggressive direction, it would be wise to document the meeting and have your witness sign a statement that the disciplined employee read the document and understood it.
He WAS spoken to before hand. His supervisor spoke with him 3 times about it before & each time his story changed - like I said before, initially he completely denied it, then he said he spoke with the customer but couldn't remember what he said to him & then he said he talked to him but denied everything the customer said he said to him and put a spin on it so that basically he tried to make it seem as if he said nothing but good things to this guy. So when we wanted him to sit down with us to talk to him ourselves (me & management) before we had to sit with our angry customer he refused to meet with us. Then in our sit down meeting last Friday he first denied it again & then said, "Oh, I didn't even know what the guy was talking about so I have no idea what I said back. I said nothing but good things. I would never say anything bad about one of our customers to someone else. I only said the product he bought from the other guy was bad." etc. If he would have met with us we wouldn't have had so much of an issue, but we had to deduce that since our EE's story changes every time he relays it but our customer's did not that our EE probably made an unprofessional decision when he spoke with this gentleman.
But I know what you're saying........
[quote user="HR Mouse"] He WAS spoken to before hand. His supervisor spoke with him 3 times about it before & each time his story changed - [...] If he would have met with us we wouldn't have had so much of an issue, but we had to deduce that since our EE's story changes every time he relays it but our customer's did not that our EE probably made an unprofessional decision when he spoke with this gentleman. [/quote]
Sorry for not reading as closely as I should have.
I would still drop the hammer on this guy every time he stepped out of line whether it's part of this disciplinary issue or not. I would, even today, write him up for his conduct in the disciplinary meeting and escalate it as a work performance / behavior issue of the same type as his throw down about the client.
HR Mouse - you mentioned that you were looking at revising your disciplinary policy. Here is a small piece of advice on that. Really look at your state law and/or consult your attorney before you do this. Here in the state of MD a progressive disciplinary policy that outlines that exact steps that need to be taken before termination has been held by the MD courts in some cases to be an implied contract and therefore voids the employment at will statement. So you want to be careful with the wording of your policy so that you the employer has the right to deviate from this policy based on the nature of the situation and that you are not voiding the at-will nature of the employment.
Well, here is our Progressive Discipline Policy (direct & word for word from our Handbook):
Any employee conduct that, in the opinion of the Company, interferes with or adversely affects our business is sufficient grounds for disciplinary action.
Disciplinary action can range from oral warnings to immediate discharge. Our general policy is to take disciplinary steps, which include oral warnings, written reprimands, suspension, or termination.
In choosing the appropriate action, we may consider any number of the following things:
Some conduct may result in immediate termination. Examples include:
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Now, I did not write this Handbook or any of the policies in it. Apparently it was created by a former employee & revised/approved by the Company's attorney at the time. I was able to get the Management Team to allow some revisions to a couple different policies at the beginning of this year, but very minimal things were able to be changed. I am not a fan of our Handbook at all, but at least I was able to "86" a lot of the verbiage which was illegal. As for our Progressive Discipline Policy (above) - I don't like it. I think it's too long and leaves some doors wide open. I believe if we eliminated the bullet points and just had the 2 paragraphs before the bullet points that would suffice. Any thoughts on this? Or could we also put in there that it will be by the discression of the management? Although I'm not too crazy about THAT for a number of reasons given our different managers & their polar opposite methods of managing around here......help?!
They're usually significantly longer than that.
It's missing the parts where management reserves the right to skip any number of steps. Although that's implied, implication only goes so far.