[SMB Essentials] Discipline and Managing Workplace Conduct

[00:00:00] Today we are going to talk about progressive discipline. I've been producing my channel for over five years and have never directly talked about this yet. I refer to it in a lot of episodes. The reason is because nobody likes it. This is like about, it's an important topic, but one of the least popular things to do. And it's just a really hard topic. Find someone who will talk about it with

[00:00:29] this attitude I think is needed. So I'm going to try and fix that today. And I'm Andrea Adams. This is The HR Hub. I'm an HR consultant and I often get asked about discipline. If I'm totally honest, it's because typically the employer is totally fed up with the behavior of an employee. And in that anger and frustration, they want the problem solved.

[00:00:53] And as I'm going to clearly spell out shortly, this is not a winning mindset for progressive discipline. And for most employees, when they hear the words progressive discipline, they assume they're being managed out. And in many cases, they're not wrong. So what I want to talk about is about what progressive discipline is actually supposed to do and how it's actually supposed to work.

[00:01:18] So we need to start with intent. Progressive discipline is a structured process for dealing with workplace performance issues through a series of conversations with increasing consequences up to termination. I am going to cover the steps in a moment. But first, I want to talk more about the mindset. We need to remember and understand that the point of progressive discipline is to give employees a real chance to improve.

[00:01:45] We're supposed to make sure they're clear about the behavior that is required and the consequences if they fail to follow through. As Brene Brown says, clear is kind. So discipline is supposed to be that clarity and provide that structure for what is actually just decent management practices.

[00:02:06] It's a process that's fair and driving towards improvement. But often what it's driving towards is termination. And of course, if that's the case, employees are going to feel that they're sensitive. And so instead of cooperating and working with you to improve, they're going to resist, lash out, get passive aggressive.

[00:02:25] So let's dive into the process. So step one is a verbal warning. You're verbally going to tell an employee what needs to improve about their performance and what the consequences will be if they fail.

[00:02:39] This is where that phrase failure to improve may result in further discipline up to including termination comes in. And you need to use those words or something very much like it for it to be disciplined at all because they have to know that there's consequences.

[00:02:57] After the conversation, document what happened in that in the meeting, send your boss an email, write it in your notebook, anything. However, you take notes. It's a verbal warning. So do not send this in a letter. Oddly, I have had people ask me if they should put it in a letter. It's like, no, it's verbal. Date it and you're done with this step.

[00:03:21] Step two is the written warning. Now you get to this point if the problem performance has not resolved or something else arises. This is a formal letter that spells out the issues and refers to the previous conversation that you had, states again clearly what improvement is required.

[00:03:44] And in this letter, you must, and at every stage of discipline, you must include the consequences if the person's behavior doesn't change. Again, you're using those words like failure to improve may result in further discipline up to and including termination.

[00:04:00] Step three is a final warning where you put the employee on notice that failure to resolve the issue will result in termination. Again, you're being clear. The purpose of the whole process, as I've said how many times now is to be clear. And at this point, you need to say something like failure to address the behavior may result in termination.

[00:04:22] You're not saying may result in further discipline up to and including discipline or up to and including termination in this letter because the consequence now is actually termination. The letter needs to be clear and ambiguous about this because clarity is the point. They need to know where the consequences are going to be.

[00:04:47] Now, some organizations will include a suspension without pay between the written warning and the final warning. It's a policy decision, but I kind of prefer it because it's a meaningful flag to the individual that things are really, really serious.

[00:05:07] Step four is the termination. Step four is the termination. If the issue hasn't been resolved, you'll also do that with a letter. I'm not going to talk about it a lot, even though it's a really big deal, because this is actually just about the discipline. This is about doing all the steps that led up to that termination, right?

[00:05:26] So a few things need to be true at every step in the process. And the first is that before you decide on discipline, you need to investigate. That investigation, especially in the earlier stages, can be quite basic, saying something like, this is what I observed or this is what was reported.

[00:05:46] What is your perspective on that? What is your perspective on that? You know, what do you have to say about that? Then you need to ask, do you have any reason for that behavior? And this last or latest question gets to mitigation. If someone's mom died the day before an emotional outburst at work, clearly that would, to a large degree, explain their behavior. And we have to take it into consideration.

[00:06:15] Investigation can also be quite involved. I've done lots of episodes on this. But such an investigation would be warranted for serious allegations. And when I say serious, it's anything that would warrant skipping steps or if you're going to go straight to termination.

[00:06:35] Things that kind of land in that category are things like, you know, if someone swore at and then punched their supervisor, like something like that's really serious workplace behavior and could result in instant termination. And I don't say instant in terms of, you know, watching the behavior happen and shouting at the person, you're fired. I mean, you know, you do your investigation, you find out what is going on, and then you terminate, but you are skipping steps.

[00:07:06] You need in those instances to do a thorough investigation. You also should do a very thorough investigation when it's the last in a series of smaller issues, but you're at the point of termination. And everything throughout the entire process needs to be documented so that if you're ever challenged later in court, you have evidence to back up your record of the events.

[00:07:30] So if you rely entirely on memories of what happened and why you did what you did, they're going to be almost worthless later unless you have a paper trail to back it up. Now I want to acknowledge that progressive discipline is hard. What I see a lot because it's hard is avoidance.

[00:07:55] Typically, a manager has been quite frustrated for a long time, sometimes years. They've, along the way, they've hinted, they've provided instructions, they've trained, but in some cases, they've rarely been as direct as they needed to be and said something like, failure to improve may result in discipline. What I see too often is managers, they're trying to coax performance.

[00:08:25] They're hinting, but they're doing all of this too vaguely. They're doing it so softly that the employee didn't register the severity of the situation. Those individuals often have sensed a problem, but it just, it wasn't clear to them. Progressive discipline is all about that clarity. It requires the employee to understand the problem and what they needed to do differently and the consequences, of course.

[00:08:53] And if any of those three things is fuzzy to the individual, we're failing this principle of clear is kind. I recently published an episode with a leader who goes through this whole process. He doesn't call it progressive discipline, but this is what he does because he understands that principle of clear is kind. I'll put a link to the episode at the end. This entire episode on progressive discipline goes along with a theme that's come out over the years of me doing my channel,

[00:09:23] is that we need to address things early. It's the number one job of a manager. You need to get the right results out of the employee and to do that, you need to be clear through having real conversations. Here is this problem I'm seeing and this is the, you know, these are the situations or I've seen it happen. This is what I need from you instead.

[00:09:48] This is important to me and it's serious and I want to understand what's getting in the way for you. Sometimes there's something going on and you could address it with training, with support, with, you know, referring them to the EFAP and just sort of change the whole vibe of these conversations.

[00:10:09] Now a question that arises often is the difference between progressive discipline and performance improvement plans. Progressive discipline is for conduct. So things like yelling, harassment, insubordination, policy violations, AWOLs. These are clear transgression of basic parts of the employment relationship. PIPs are for performance relative to some part of the job description.

[00:10:37] So let's say someone is not meeting a sales target or their work quality is low. That would be cause to put them on a PIP. They're not doing anything wrong or unethical, but they're just not performing to the standard you need them to perform. Now there, of course, I'm not going to deny that there's a gray zone in the middle, like between what would warrant a PIP and what would warrant progressive discipline.

[00:11:05] But here's a rule of thumb that's maybe helpful. If it's more of a skill gap, choose the PIP. If it's non-compliance or ethics, that's definitely a case of progressive discipline. So I want to make a quick note about terminations here. In most places, the bar for a with cause termination is high. Courts will usually look at whether or not you approach the process by providing clarity.

[00:11:33] Clarity around the conduct that was needed. Clarity around what the poor conduct was in the first place. And clarity around what the consequences might be if there isn't a change. If your process is box checking, you're just going through the motions, you're doing your investigation, you're writing your letter, chances are pretty good that you're going to fail.

[00:12:01] It's going to be evident in the evidence, in the documentation that you weren't going through it with the intent of improvement. So the right mindset is actually going to protect you should you ever get to that termination stage. I like the mindset of clear is kind as generally as a good approach to progressive discipline, as a good approach to management in general. People leadership is a tough job.

[00:12:29] So here is a takeaway for you. Progressive discipline is not about building a case for termination. It's about being honest with someone about a problem that they have and giving them a chance to fix it, a real chance to fix it. And then, of course, documenting everything you did. If you're dealing with a tough situation and want to talk, whether you're in HR or you are the manager, I'd be happy to. I'm an HR consultant dealing with this kind of stuff all the time.

[00:12:57] Reach out via email, LinkedIn or my website. We can get the situation turned around or at least some sort of structured path to resolution. Take care and have a great week.