Employee Discipline: Rethinking Strategy and Tactics

A short while ago I attended a social event and one of the other attendees had brought a local police officer as a guest. The two of us ended up in an extended conversation. It seems that he had just been notified that an appearance before the discipline review board was mandated. He was uncertain about what he was being called before the board and was clearly agitated by the fact. Our discussion focused on the way discipline was administered in the department and how the discipline review board was used as a tool of intimidation and fear.

Originally I had intended to write this e-zine on the topic of discharge for absenteeism. The above conversation, however, stimulated my interest in sharing some thoughts about why the discipline process is so often ineffective. My purpose is to focus on some basic principles that are necessary to ensure the effectiveness of your discipline program. I am offering the following seven points as a way to stimulate your thinking about the manner in which discipline is administered in your organization and the effectiveness of the discipline program.

First, the word discipline itself is intriguing because it has both a positive and negative connotation. “That child needs to be disciplined.” “She is a very disciplined employee.” How different these two sentences are. One uses the word discipline as a corrective action with the connotation of punishment in the context of something wrong. The other uses the word as an admirable characteristic related to effective performance. What I believe often gets lost is the fact that we ought be disciplining employees for the purpose of building a well disciplined team. Question, is discipline administered in your organization for the purpose of improving employee discipline? Or, do you simply punish people when they are bad?

Second, employees are disciplined for issues around misconduct and unacceptable performance. Yet when I have reviewed discipline protocols it is frequently obvious that they have been written to deal exclusively with matters of misconduct. The problem is that the two require distinctly different approaches. With matters of misconduct employees are disciplined with the expectation that whatever infraction has occurred will not happen again. Performance problems, on the other hand, are best dealt with by setting performance goals and then working with the employee over time to achieve those goals. Unacceptable performance does not generally involved an on and off switch. Rather it is a matter of growth and development. While an employee can be discharged for misconduct and/or for unacceptable performance, the path by which one arrives at the point of employment termination should be different.

Third, it is important to clearly distinguish between informal disciplinary acts and formal. Formal discipline (oral warnings, written warnings, suspensions) are usually less effective than the informal protocols (training, coaching, counseling and other softer forms of intervention) correcting and shaping employee behavior. For one thing, formal discipline is harder on the relationship between supervisor and subordinate and as such makes it more difficult to positively influence employee activities. But, formal discipline is frequently a legal or contractual necessity. My advice, do all you can informally before you move to the formal. Once you move to the formal it is generally very difficult to effectively utilize the informal.

Fourth, the culture of your organization is usually a stronger determinant of employee behavior then is your work rules and performance goals. Thus, disciplining employees may not be as effective towards changing behavior as the work you do to improve the culture; change the culture, change the behavior (this suggests another topic for an e-zine). At minimum what you need to be asking yourself when you discipline an employee is whether your other employees will support your decision to implement discipline or will they feel that your decision is unfair. While sometimes the perception that something is unfair is based on a lack of knowledge, where employees have the knowledge and your actions are viewed as inappropriate; then you have a much bigger problem than whatever you are attempting to address with the discipline.

Fifth, employee discipline tends to focus on eliminating what is not wanted. Their often seems to be an unstated assumption that if we eliminate what we don’t want, what is left will be what we do want. I doubt that this is true. If what we do want is an energized, enthusiastic and committed workforce does the discipline program help bring wayward employees into alignment with that objective? Or, does it focus on specific problems as opposed to the larger objective? You may find it advisable to benignly overlook certain problem areas while being diligent to pursue the larger goal.

Sixth, while I am a strong believer that informal tools are the best way to intervene into an employee problem, I want to be clearly on the record that you cannot ignore the formal tools if the problem has deteriorated to the point where it is clear that the informal approach will not work. When I ask human resource managers about the successful use of progressive discipline, the answer is almost always negative. They pretty much acknowledge that once they start into formal modes of discipline their goal is no longer to correct the problem but rather to satisfy whatever legal constraints there are on terminating the employment of the individual. My sense is that their reasoning is absolutely correct. If the problem by cannot be dealt with by coaching, counseling, a work plan, a memo of expectation, etc., then why do we think a two day suspension will change the employee’s basic approach to the workplace? From this perspective, therefore, the best approach I have seen to formal discipline is one found in a number of Teamster’s labor contracts. They call for termination of employment if an employee repeats an infraction, within a two year period of time, for which the employee has been previously given a written warning. The progression, then, calls for extensive informal efforts to work with the employee, followed by one written warning and then discharge.

Seventh, there is a quote from a Star Wars figure in a science fiction novel that I have often used when conducting training programs on employee discipline. It goes like this: “Always remember this; your enemy [misbehaving employee] is not wrong in his own eyes. If you keep this in mind you may make him your friend; if not, you can kill him [terminate employment] but without hate.” While recognizing that homicide is illegal in all 50 states, there is a huge amount of wisdom in this quote. I am oftentimes dismayed at the frequency with which the first principle (make the employee your friend) is ignored and instead we move directly to a vindictive action. While this is understandable within the context of the emotions that are sometimes created by serious employee misconduct, an immediate negative response will rarely bring about the desired impact on the employee and/or your work force. You can always move to discharge the employee but why not try something positive first?

I close this short essay on employee discipline by emphasizing the necessity to impose discipline “without hate.” I need say no more.

Next Month: Terminating for Absences

What options does an employer have when a supervisor begins a secret (or not-so-secret) relationship with a subordinate?

Inter-office dating is a fact of the workplace. While not the most optimal of situations, they can be innocuous enough when responsibly managed. A major problem arises when there is a differential in workplace power – when one has authority over the other. An asymmetric balance of power leads to questions of mutual consent. How can a subordinate that enters into a relationship with someone with power over them be argued to have given the same level of consent? Just as troublesome, when the relationship comes to light in the workplace the cries of bias and preferential treatment, whether real or imagined, can have terrible effects on employee morale and productivity.

What, then, can an employer do in the situation of the secret relationship… what are the options? Outright banning will not work, as it raises questions of privacy rights and may just encourage such relationships to stay underground. Remember, employers are just as liable for the fallout from relationships they’re unaware of as those going on under their noses. Keep in mind, firing one member of the relationship has proven to be legally questionable particularly if the supervisor is male and the subordinate female — a standing policy of firing the subordinate would (rightly) open the employer to allegations of sexual discrimination.

The answer, I believe, is in recognizing what an organization has a right to control and what might be considered improper interference. You have the right to control that which can be destructive to the organization. My recommendation is to craft and enforce a carefully written policy on personal relationships in the workplace. The policy needs to have at least two sections:

1. The first is a statement about the purpose and intent of the policy itself. Emphasize the fact that the policy is not to interfere in the personal lives of employees but rather to protect the employer against situations where there is an obvious and counter productive conflict of interest; guarding against circumstances that can create legal liabilities and reduce employee morale.

2. The second section needs to carefully describe the actions that are prohibited. The prohibition, however, cannot be against a personal relationship but rather against the hiring and/or supervising of a relative or close personal friend. The policy needs to particularly emphasize that employees are expected to reveal relationships where there is a conflict of interest (supervising a spouse or significant other, for example); secrecy is the big no-no.

Also, I have to confess to a certain reluctance with regard to the recommendation that one should write a policy on this issue. In general I am not a promoter of policy writing as my experience leads me to conclude that more often than not policies can get the employer in trouble. For one thing, it is always difficult to predict all of the different ways that the policy may have to be applied. As a result the policy may rise up and bite you when you are confronted with an unusual set situation. Additionally, employers all too often write the policy and then fail to enforce it. The unequal enforcement of a policy is fertile ground for plaintiff’s attorney. In this case, however, I feel that the policy is absolutely essential. Employees have a right to personal relationships, even in a superior — subordinate situation. It is not the relationship itself that is at issue. Rather it is the impact of that relationship on organizational behavior that must be addressed. This can only be managed through the development of a clear policy related to controlling the potential damage from those personal relationships that are impacting the organization.

Finally, when I consider the question that was asked it occurs to me that the “secret” relationship must have been reported by a member of the team to a higher level manager in the organization. Even without the policy, the employer has the right to confront the supervisor about any actions that compromise his or her effectiveness as a supervisor (notice that it is not the subordinate employee that one should confront). There are a number of actions that the employer can choose to do including moving one of the two parties to a different workgroup, or insisting that the subordinate employee’s performance evaluations and work assignments be under the direction of an outside supervisor. The bottom line is that the problem needs to be directly confronted.

Quote of the Month:

The aim of argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.

Joseph Joubert