Discipline for small employers is often very difficult. Poor performance has an oversized impact on the business, coaching is more costly because it consumes so much time, and most entrepreneurs don’t have the background knowledge of how to do it correctly.
We will discuss some of these points in greater detail later, but here are some basics about employee discipline that will help you get it right.
1. Don’t start with a written warning. The first time an employee is late, or underperforms, talk to them about it then. Offer support, understand the issue, express concern. Give help if needed.
2. Employee discipline isn’t punishment. If you’re attitude is “make them pay a price for their poor performance,” you might as well just fire them and move on because you’re only hurting the performance of that employee. Employee discipline is just that, discipline. You are setting guardrails of behavior and performance to guide the employee going forward so they can perform better.
3. Written warnings only need two sections.
-What has happened.
-What the employee must do going forward.
4. The “what has happened” section should be a timeline. Written in third person, document what went wrong on what date. Don’t use any other name other than the employee’s. Include when managers discussed the situation with the employee or gave them verbal warnings. Close with a quote from the company policy that they have violated if applicable.
“The purpose of a written warning isn’t to document the process to protect yourself in court, although good documentation does that. The purpose is to improve the performance of the employee.”
5. The “what the employee must do” section should be short and concise. It must clearly state that the employee must not repeat the behavior outlined in the first section, and what they must to do improve (quantify it if possible). It should also note that if things go the way they are currently going, it could result in termination.
6. Include some space for them to write their thoughts to give their side of the story.
7. Personal Improvement Plans (PIP’s), should be reserved for employees that you think will improve their behavior or performance if coached the right way. These always include a component of training by leadership. If leadership isn’t willing to do the training don’t use a PIP. PIP’s are not a way to document the process for proof if there is a lawsuit. PIP’s should be rare.
8. When you speak to the employee:
-Give them the bad news first.
-Wait a few seconds and then show them the written warning and invite them to read it for themselves.
-Don’t argue with them but do explain the reasoning and what they need to do better.
-Explain, if necessary, that nothing they say right now is going to keep them from receiving the warning (there are a few compliance/legal exceptions to this).
-Give specific examples and describe what improvement looks like
9. Remind the employee that you still believe in them. If you didn’t, you’d just terminate their employment.
10. End the meeting as quickly as reasonably practicable. Get their signature on it (stipulating they have received it, not that they agree). End the meeting friendly. These meetings generally work best at the end of the day.
11. Stop the meeting if there are legal accusations. Call The Grange or an attorney, if an accusation of discrimination or harassment is made by the employee during the meeting.
The purpose of a written warning isn’t to document the process to protect yourself in court, although good documentation does that. The purpose is to improve the performance of the employee. National studies often say that the cost of replacing an employee is somewhere between 50% and 90% of their annual income. I have personally calculated the costs and, being conservative, have always come out with a cost of, at least, 50%.
If you bought a machine that was sold to you on the basis that it could produce 100 widgets an hour, but when you got it up and operating it only produced 80 widgets an hour, would you simply throw it away and buy a new one? Would you kick it and hope it performed better? Would you give it bad information or cut the inputs it needs to make widgets? Would you turn it off for a few days in the hope that, when it does come back online, it will work better without you doing anything to it?
Of course you wouldn’t. Then why would you do that with people that are infinitely more complex than a mere machine you purchase?
Just remember… The reason we give employees written warnings is to ensure that neither they or us forget or misinterpret what was said in the meeting. There is a written record of your intent that everybody can look back on to remember.
If you need a template for written warnings, or some advice on how to write them, call us at the Grange and we’ll be more than happy to help.