Your Traditional Discipline System Does Not Work!

That’s right. I am telling you that your traditional discipline system does not work and you should junk it and start over.

Here’s the traditional system:
• Verbal Warning
• Written warning
• Suspension
• Discharge

Here is what typically happens.

First offense for excessive absenteeism, the supervisor gives the employee a verbal warning, writing it up and placing it in the employee’s file.

Second offense, the supervisor gives the employee a written warning and puts it in the employee’s file.

Third offense, the supervisor suspends the employee three days without pay for excessive absenteeism, again with a copy to the file.

Fourth offense, the supervisor terminates the employee.

Excuse me, but doesn’t this sound like law enforcement? Progressive discipline is no different than progressively tougher penalties for law breakers.

Employer Police

Verbal warning Verbal warning
Written warning Ticket/probation
Suspension Short jail term
Termination Longer jail term

Like law enforcement, no matter how good they are later, that record stays with the employee for life or at least as long as they are with that employer.

Now that just plain does not make a lot of sense to me.

By the time an employee gets to the suspension stage, is there much hope of saving them? I doubt it. In 40 years of administering this type of system, I do not recall ever saving an employee who had been suspended under the traditional progressive discipline system.

Tell me this. Isn’t that step used just to document that you tried to save them, so when you do terminate, you have less chance of a challenge? Of course it is.

So what’s the true purpose in all this? To change behavior or document the termination process? If it’s to change behavior, that’s not the right thing to do, that is unless you call changing a good employee into something other than a good employee the right thing to do.

I still remember the one warning slip I got as an hourly employee many years ago. I was temporarily assigned to a shipping crew from my normal job as a crater. It was late on Saturday and the shipping crew had worked over 55 hours so far that week and were told to stay and load another truck. They refused and went home. I asked the foreman what I was supposed to do. He said to go home as I could not work alone. On Monday, morning, along with the shipping crew, I got a written warning for walking off the job! To this day I resent what happened.

Progressive discipline system should be called the Progressive Antagonism System? So what do I mean? Well, each time you discipline, you raise the antagonism level for both parties. Both parties feel the other party is wrong and as that grows there becomes less and less hope of salvaging the employee. I absolutely feel that system is responsible for many of the workplace violence stories we see in the news. It simply does not work in the traditional form.

So if the traditional progressive discipline system does not work, what does?

Well, first let’s set the record straight. We do need some type of way to correct employee behavior that has gone off track. Look at the word “correct”. In the traditional system we are trying to change or correct an employee’s behavior. So let’s call it like it is; corrective action. OK now we have that straight. From this point, it is no longer disciplinary action. It’s corrective action.

The next thing we want to do is to remove the word suspension from the system. A suspension helps nothing in this process. Give a three day suspension for excessive absences?! Ya gotta be kidding! The guy is likely to say “Could you make it four days? I want to go fishing.”

Even if the suspension is for something else, say for a safety violation. The employee goes home and tells his wife he has been suspended without pay for three days. Does the wife blame him? Of course not, she blames the company.

There is only one place where a suspension should be used and that is a suspension pending investigation. That option should remain in the system.

Another thing. Most discipline procedures state that for severe issues they can take stronger action, regardless of the employee’s previous discipline history. Suppose a top notch equipment operator with a clean record causes $5,000 in damages to a piece of equipment and the company suspends her for three days as a penalty?

What’s the operator’s thinking about the company going to be? Gee, I guess I deserved that? No, I don’t think so. She feels badly enough about the damage and she will make sure it does not happen again. That is until she got the suspension. Now her attitude toward the company is likely to be negative. So what did the suspension accomplish? Nothing.

Now suppose at the same time a purchasing agent makes a calculation error that costs the company $.01 per gallon on the purchase of millions of gallons of diesel fuel. Think anything is going to happen? I doubt it. I saw this very thing happen.

OK, here is what the new system would look like.

• Corrective Counseling – No discipline as yet
• Written Verbal Warning – First formal action
• Written Warning – Three written warnings in 18 months result in termination.

But for this to work your supervisors have to get over the idea that corrective action begins with a documented verbal warning. At that stage the employee is already on a slippery slope.
Corrective action begins with the first sign of behavior that is disruptive to the team.

I don’t care if there is no policy covering what the employee is doing. I don’t care that the employee has “not broken any rules”. If the conduct is disrupting the team, it needs to be dealt with. At this stage there is little or no antagonism between the players.

The supervisor sits down with the employee and outlines the unacceptable behavior. She asks the employee for his response. Once the employee has had a chance to express himself, the supervisor says the behavior has to change and makes it very clear it is the employee’s responsibility to make the change. It is not the supervisor’s responsibility.

Then the supervisor sets a time frame for the employee to think about and act on how he will change his behavior. They agree on a date to meet again and discuss progress. See what this is? It is no different than a meeting to discuss production issues.

At this stage, there is no formal corrective action. This is simply a discussion about the employee’s behavior. The supervisor needs to make that clear to him.

At their second meeting, they discuss progress. If sufficient, that ends it. If more work needs to be done, they set another date to again review progress. If by the second meeting, there has been little or no progress and he is not cooperating then it is time to go to the verbal warning stage.

See what is happening here? The supervisor has given the employee ample opportunity to change behavior. Now the fact that she has to go to a verbal warning will not come as a surprise him. All too often a negative response by an employee to formal corrective action is when they did not know it was coming. They were not given a chance to correct behavior before the formal corrective action.

OK, you say, what about the employee who fails to call in and report his absence. That’s a clear violation of the rules. My response would be to ask you if this is the first time for this employee or has it happened before? If it’s a repeat and he has been counseled before then obviously he is not getting the message.

If it is a first offense and he has a clean record, talk with him and find out why it happened. Maybe there is a legitimate reason or maybe he just forgot to do it. Why give him a formal warning when a counseling session will accomplish the same thing? You have plenty of time. If it happens again he knows to expect some consequence for it. If it doesn’t happen again, what possible purpose would a formal warning accomplish that the counseling session would not do?

OK, so now you are in the formal corrective action process. I said junk most of the traditional system. Here is another part you need to change. Instead of going to written and then to termination, do this. Three written warnings within 18 months, for any reason, will result in termination.

Next you reach out to the employees by saying that if they go 18 months without any further warnings, all warnings will be removed from further consideration. You move them to a separate file. Your attorney will advise you not to destroy them. You just say to employees that if no further infractions occur, they will be removed from the file and you will not consider them in any future corrective action.

One thought you may have is that employees will fear that their supervisor will start a written warning write up campaign on them that will quickly get them out the door. Well, they could do that under the old system too, couldn’t they? Besides, all pending terminations have to have senior level approval to take place. A bunch of poorly thought out written warnings will quickly catch your eye.

Most employees want any formal corrective action to go away at some point. So why not make it easy for them. Just encourage them to keep a clean record and the system will make sure the corrective actions will go away.

I also encourage employees to come in any time and look at their file. Worry about employees continually coming in asking to see their file? Don’t be. It won’t happen. Guess what happens? When they soon learn you do what you say you are going to do, they don’t even bother to come in and look at their file because they know your word is good.

So let’s recap this change.

You start changing behavior early. Long before you use the formal corrective action steps. You sit the employee down and address your concerns with him. You make sure he understands it is his responsibility to change his behavior, not yours. The two of you agree on his plan to change and you follow up to make sure the change happens. In those rare situations where this does not work, you start the formal process. It’s now no longer a surprise because you have met at least twice with him prior to taking the action. Many times this takes care of it as he now understands you are serious.

For those very few who don’t get the message, you go from there to a formal written warning, telling the employee that if he gets three of them in 18 months from the first one he will be terminated. If he goes 18 months without any further problems, you will remove the written warning(s) from his file.

The last part is you encourage your employees to come in any time and look at their personnel file.

The bottom line is you are no longer a cop looking for rule breakers. You are treating employees as adults. You show them you believe in them, and even though they don’t always do the right thing, they have your respect. You have to be the one starting this process. You have to reach out. Most of them will respect you for it. As I have said in other writings, you will become a “Class Act Supervisor”.
Will you save them all? Not likely, but you will find that as the respect for you grows, your team will let those who are not willing to measure up know that they are not willing to put up with behavior that makes your life tougher. They have a good relationship going and they are not about to let someone mess that up. In many cases, they will drive out the offender without you doing anything.
So, what have you got to lose by trying this, except maybe some frustration, anger and sleepless nights?

Tags: changing behavior, corrective counseling, discharge, Progressive Antagonism System, Progressive Discipline System, supervisor, suspension, suspension pending investigation, termination, verbal warning, written warning

This entry was posted on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Human Resource Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.