- An employee is constantly late to work: refer to your attendance policy В which mandates that employees can only be tardy twice before disciplinary action is taken.
- Dress code violations: include that company policy says employees must always be in their expected uniform while on the clock.
- An employee continues to use social media during work hours: cite your cell phone usage rule and that employees shouldn’t be using social media or personal devices while on the clock.
When it comes to progressive discipline, a write-up is a to explain why the documented behavior isn’t up to standard and how employees are expected to improve. If your employees signed an employee handbook or attendance policy when they were hired, now’s a good time to include that as well.
4. Include any relevant witness statements
If the performance issue at stake was raised by another team member, involves multiple employees, or your employee works closely with another supervisor or shift manager between you, include their statement in your write-up. Keep in mind any of these statements may be relevant later in the case of a legal claim. So it’s important for witness statements to follow the same guidelines as good documentation:
- All witness statements should be factual observations, not subjective opinions.
- Witness statements should help build a credible case of ongoing behavior leading to the employee write-up.
- Witness statements should include any efforts or disciplinary measures by other supervisors to correct behavior along the way.
5. Set expectations for improvement
After you’ve detailed where your employee’s performance needs to improve and why, it’s time to set guidelines for how you expect them to correct it. It’s not helpful to simply lay out what employees have done wrong. In fact, the Harvard Business Review В reports that more employees would rather receive corrective feedback from their boss than praise and that 72% of employees believe their performance would improve if they received corrective feedback.
Corrective feedback is honest, focuses on the issue (not the person), and includes steps for improvement. So set your employees up for what will come next once they’ve received their write-up. Include the corrective action needed and what the outcome will be if casual sex dating websites they improve, or if things get worse. If the employee doesn’t improve and the next step after the write-up is termination, make it clear so that they’re prepared for exactly what’s on the line.
Once you’ve finished the disciplinary write-up, schedule a meeting with your employee and walk through it together in person. Bring a witness along to confirm that the meeting happened and that your employee was made aware of concerns with their job performance. Then it’s time for the conversation to begin:
- Share your concerns and take employees through each example of poor performance. If your employee asks for proof or argues that a certain issue did or didn’t occur, use your documentation.
- Point back to your company policies. Every employee read and agreed to the policies when they were hired.
- Explain what happens next and which steps you expect them to take in response to the write-up.
- At the end, have your employee sign the write-up confirming that they’ve received and read it.
Your employee may not take the news well. They may refuse to sign the write-up. If you’re worried that might be the case, the Society for Human Resource Management suggests leaving space on the write-up for employees to add their own comments and signed response, or allowing employees to submit a written rebuttal with their signature, which you can then attach to their disciplinary write-up.