Employee Discipline General Guidelines

What do you see time and time again... Document, Document and Document!!

So what do you document?

• Verbal warnings
• Outline of the behavior problem
• Detailed corrective action required
• Additional steps / actions to be taken
• Signatures / statements

Employers need to make sure that they're *proactive, not *reactive. When we're reactive we tend to be more emotional in our approach. This can lead to mismanaging the situation and tends to cause more issues than solutions. It also creates a poor perception amongst staff and can cause managers to lose respect.

Examples of being *reactive:

• Immediately yelling
• Using curse words and slamming doors
• Public berating
• Calling names

Examples of being *proactive:

• Asking to speak to employee in private to discuss issue
• Remaining calm
• Asking questions regarding the incident to define the problem
• Provide solution for immediate improvement, define expectations

The main points here are to keep current and consistent documentation and to be proactive in your approach rather than reactive. It's really that simple!