Creative Risk Solutions Case Study: The Disciplinary Process

Disciplinary procedures are a necessary part of corporate culture and provide an important function in the running of organisations. So, it’s of course very important that your business understands these processes to ensure legal protection against any claims of malpractice or negligence.

Your company's disciplinary procedure can be used if an employee is suspected of breaking workplace rules, which is known as misconduct. Examples of misconduct include instances where an employee:

? Refuses to do work or deliberately does their work to a poor standard

? Is regularly late in arriving for work

? Has been absent from work without permission

Gross misconduct covers instances in which an employee’s misconduct is very serious. Examples of gross misconduct include:

? Bullying

? Harassment

? Fraud

? Theft

? Dishonesty

Each workplace is unique, and the expectations of employee conduct, as well as definitions of misconduct, should be set out clearly in your company policy. Following an allegation of employee misconduct, the disciplinary process should commence. Let’s look at how this process should work:

Stages of the disciplinary process

A disciplinary procedure should include the following:

? An initial investigation into the alleged misconduct

? Attempt, initially, to resolve the matter informally. Please note that this stage may fail or may not be possible

? If the matter cannot be resolved informally, a disciplinary hearing should then take place

? Inform the employee of the outcome

? Hold an appeal, if necessary

Disciplinary policy

You should set out how employees will be disciplined for misconduct in the workplace in a company policy, and the policy should be easily available to everyone. For example, employees may have access to a hard copy or view it on the company’s intranet.

All aspects of the policy must be applied equally to all staff consistently and fairly. Failure to do so could lead to employees making a claim to an employment tribunal for discrimination. It’s good practice to check how the disciplinary policy was applied in previous cases when looking into a new allegation of employee misconduct. Taking precedents into account will help make the disciplinary procedure fair in the new case.

Something that’s important to keep in mind regarding disciplinary procedures is that the investigation stage of the process is a fact-finding exercise, and the investigating manager is not the decision maker. Once the investigation is complete, the investigating manager will review the facts. If there is enough evidence to suggest there could be truth in any allegations, they will refer the matter to a disciplinary manager. The disciplinary manager will decide if any disciplinary sanctions are appropriate.

Original case study credited to RRADAR.?