Overview of Employee Discipline and Termination Best Practices

1. Arena Food Service, Inc.
Employee Discipline and Termination
Managers’ Seminar
Friday, January 11, 2018
Sysco-Central Illinois, Lincoln, Illinois

2. Employee Discipline
Policy Statement
To be effective, organizations must set and maintain standards
for employee behavior and performance.
As a manager or supervisor, you play a key role in ensuring
those standards are met. A clear and consistent disciplinary
approach can help you deal effectively with misconduct and
also protect the company, and you, from charges of wrongful
termination or other legal action.

3. Employee Discipline
Disciplinary issues
Minor to moderate conduct issues may not require formal
actions or disciplinary procedures. Initial verbal counseling may
be most appropriate.
Watch for emerging and continued behavior patterns.
More serious issues include those that are outlined in company
policy may requiring formal immediate disciplinary action.

4. Employee Discipline
Behavior vs. Performance
Behavior or conduct
• Violates company policy. such as sexual harassment or e-mail
misuse
• Should be dealt with through disciplinary action.
Performance
• Capability issue such as missing sales target or low skill.
• Disciplinary action may not always be appropriate – at least
in the beginning.

5. Employee Discipline
Effective employee discipline
Benefits to a clear disciplinary procedures
• Establish expectations and predictability
• Apply consequences fairly and consistently
• Correct inappropriate behavior
• Protect the company from complaints and lawsuits

6. Employee Discipline
Effective employee discipline, best practices
• Maintaining regular communication
– Provide regular, timely and appropriate feedback.
– Avoid situations where employee is unaware of dissatisfaction until
he or she receives a formal reprimand.
• View discipline as corrective rather than punitive
– Explain clearly what needs to be corrected.
– Make suggestions and counsel employee on how to correct.

7. Employee Discipline
Effective employee discipline, best practices
• Take a progressive approach to discipline
– Recognize the behavior and discuss with the employee
– Written warning issued and placed in employee file
– Second waring that clearly specifies ramifications of future
infractions.
– Termination
• Supports idea of due process.
• Consistently applied.
• Encourages improvement.

8. Employee Discipline
Examples
Which two examples demonstrate principles of effective employee discipline?
1. Telling an employee that personal phone calls during work are not acceptable
and a repeat of the behavior will result in a formal written warning
2. Documenting incidents of an employee's continuing misconduct to support
increasingly severe consequences
3. Writing up male workers for violating the company's attendance policy but not
doing the same for female workers
4. Making sure that an employee who comes in late knows this behavior is
unacceptable by illegally docking her pay for the missed time
5. Giving feedback during an annual review about a violation of the company's
code of conduct that happened six months ago, when the behavior was not
addressed at the time it occurred

9. Employee Discipline
Disciplining an Employee
How to respond to an employee policy infraction
• Assess the severity of the behavior
– Minor misconduct: late, rudeness
– Escalating misconduct: patterns of behavior, cost company
appreciable money or time. Unacceptable but don’t want to end the
relationship.
– Major misconduct: serious actions such as violence, theft, repeated
misconduct.

10. Employee Discipline
Disciplining an Employee
How to respond to an employee policy infraction
• Consider other aspects of behavior
– Effect on customers and employees
– Frequency of behavior
– Employee’s disciplinary history
– Legality of the behavior

11. Employee Discipline
Documenting a disciplinary issue
Careful documentation is important for your protection
Effective and complete disciplinary documents include
• Description of the problem
• Explanation of conduct expectations and requirements for
improvement
• Future consequences for failing to meet expectations if
repeated
• Description of prior warnings or disciplinary actions
• Space for employee’s response and acknowledgement

12. Employee Discipline
Documenting a disciplinary issue, best practice
• Record specific actions and behaviors
– Who, what, when, where
• Avoid subjective assessments
– Provide objective facts rather than editorialize
• Describe the negative impact of the behavior
• Meet with the employee in a timely manner

13. Employee Discipline
Documenting a disciplinary issue, best practice
When meeting with an employee concerning discipline
• Meet in a timely manner, after the facts have been verified
but not in the heat of the moment.
• Appropriate time and place to meet privately. Not in front of
coworkers.
• Be clear and objective.
• Point to the consequences if behavior continues.
• Adopt a calm, businesslike manner. Avoid emotion.
• Listen to the employee
• Ensure understanding of the concerns.
• Be clear, direct and respectful.

14. Employee Termination
Avoiding unemployment and wrongful termination
Even if you terminate a worker's employment for legitimate
reasons, the termination could be considered wrongful if the
termination is handled poorly.
An employer who hasn't prepared for the termination carefully
may find it difficult to defend its decision a claim is made.

15. Employee Termination
Avoiding unemployment and wrongful termination
Ensure all aspects of progressive discipline are followed
• Verbal correction
– Allows the employee an opportunity to learn of the issue in a
nonthreatening way
• Written correction
– Utilized as a next step to formalize the corrections needed
• Final written warning
– Appropriate when no improvement has been made.
• Unpaid suspension (in some instances)
• Termination
– Used when all prior steps have failed to result in improvement

16. Employee Termination
Avoiding unemployment and wrongful termination
Ensure all aspects of progressive discipline are followed
• Verbal correction
– Allows the employee an opportunity to learn of the issue in a
nonthreatening way
• Written correction
– Utilized as a next step to formalize the corrections needed
• Final written warning
– Appropriate when no improvement has been made.
• Unpaid suspension (in some instances)
• Termination
– Used when all prior steps have failed to result in improvement

17. Employee Termination
Avoiding unemployment and wrongful termination
Following consistent, fair procedures for handling
terminations can help protect you and the company from
unemployment or wrongful termination claims and minimize
the negative personal and organizational effects associated
with the process