Disciplinary Warnings

jrussell · January 2007

We are trying to reevaluate our disciplinary warning program. We do not remove disciplinary warnings from employee files, and are trying to determine a fair time frame that disciplinary warnings should be held against an employee.

marc · January 2007

I think they should stay in the EEs file for as long as you keep the file.

Just because a document is in the file does not mean you are holding something against the EE. Once they have survived whatever disciplinary time frame that has been attached to an incident, then that incident is over.

Let's say you had a sexual harassment situation. Investigated it, had a finding against an EE and relocated the harasser to another department. A year goes by and you remove the warning from the file. Another year goes by and the EE harasses someone else. With turnover being a factor, it is possible no one will remember and now you have a problem, but no history to say it is a bigger problem because of repeat offenses.

That is just one bad example. There are plenty of instances where you might want to prove, or review the documents for legal, consistency and other reasons.

jrussell · January 2007

Marc, Thank you so much for your prompt response. We will continue to retain the warnings as you said. If an employee had 2 warnings in 2005 and then another in 2006, for same or different violations of company policy, and then in 2007 has another, what is the accumulative time period you would allow these warnings to result in termination? All cleared in one year, two years, 3, etc.

Thank you!

ray a · January 2007

I agree with Marc. In my case, the more common type of discipline involves poor attendance. If roughly 6 months have gone by since the previous infraction, I usually start the disciplinary process over with a verbal or written warning, depending on the severity.

jrussell · January 2007

Thank you Ray.

Dutch2 · January 2007

We use one year for a warning/counceling form to be considered "active." However, We do not take any warnings out of files; they still in the personnel file as long as the ee is with us.

jrussell · January 2007

Thank you. This is exactly the information I was looking for!

Indiana Catbert · January 2007

Our practice is to consider disciplinary documents the same way as performance reviews since they both are used to address performance. As such, they remain in the file as part of an employee's history. Subsequent performance documents will also show progress so that when looking at the totality of an employee's history, one will see the problem being either corrected or not reoccurring.

For issues that require continual monitoring (attendance, substandard performance, etc.), a regular 30 day follow-up process is used and documented until resolution (correction or termination). Obviously, that isn't necessary for presumably one time conduct issues.

marc · January 2007

We follow a progressive discipline policy for most types of discipline. Time frames associated with the process are variable depending on the severity of the problem and the progress being made toward correction by the EE.

With attendance issues, we went away from the points based idea and utilize soft words like "excessive." You might be able to tell that I lost the arguement to go to a points based approach over a 6 month period.

jrussell · January 2007

Marc, thanks for your response. We do not have a formal progressive discipline policy in place, because as you, it depends on the severity of the violation, but I would love to implement the point system for attendance...no more subjectivity!

Disciplinary Warnings

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