There is little question that preparing and delivering a written warning letter is the most difficult thing to do as a leader. It's one of those duties we should never enjoy, but unfortunately we must perform it to keep productivity high. If we ignore the problem it will have a negative impact on your business.
There is a right way and wrong way to issue employee discipline. The wrong way is to wait until you can't take the problem anymore and explode into a rage, doing and saying things that will surely get you sued. This approach is unfortunately the road most traveled by new supervisor, because they think the behavior will improve on its own.
Rarely does an employee's poor behavior ever improve on its own and in fact it generally gets worse especially if the employee never receives any consequences. The problem may even get worse when other employees notice that there are no consequences for this type of behavior. When this happens you now have a bigger problem.
The first step to make before preparing and issuing a written warning letter is specifically defining what the employee has done wrong. The second step is to ask yourself if anyone else has demonstrated this same behavior and if so, what you did about it. Remember, it is extremely important that you treat everyone the same; therefore, if you didn't take action against one you better not take action against someone else. This is the fastest way to be accused of discrimination by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
It is very easy to figure out that some behaviors cannot be tolerated, such as, stealing or fighting; however, some are more difficult to determine. For instance, can an employee have an unlimited number of unexcused absences? Or, is it fine for an employee to arrive late whenever they want?
Producing an employee handbook is an outstanding method to cover these types of policies. By covering all your employment policies in your employee handbook and providing your staff with a copy, it acts as an excellent way of insuring your employees have been made fully aware of them. This is a must for your employee disciplinary program.
Before actually writing the written warning letter it is time to collect all the evidence that you can in order to show clearly that the staff member has violated your employment policy, and you have confirmed you have taken similar action on others. Just to show an example, we will say an employee has had three tardy periods within a ninety day time frame. Also we will say that our written attendance policy, which the employee signed for, states that any employee that incurs three or more tardy periods that are unexcused in a twelve month period may receive discipline.
The written warning letter may be written something like this. "You are being issued this warning letter for excessive tardiness, which is a violation of our company policy. On August 4, 2012, you signed acknowledging that you received our employee handbook that outlines our attendance policy. You were tardy thirty-five minutes on June 4, 2013, twenty-one minutes on July 21, 2013, and twenty-eight minutes on August 28, 2013. Going forward if you violate our attendance policy, or any policy in the future you may be subject to additional disciplinary action, up to and including possible termination.
Preparing a written warning letter for an employee can be this simple. The secret is to only use the facts and keep everything as short as possible. Try to never include your feelings by using words like "I think." By keeping these tips in mind you should not experience any problems.
There is a right way and wrong way to issue employee discipline. The wrong way is to wait until you can't take the problem anymore and explode into a rage, doing and saying things that will surely get you sued. This approach is unfortunately the road most traveled by new supervisor, because they think the behavior will improve on its own.
Rarely does an employee's poor behavior ever improve on its own and in fact it generally gets worse especially if the employee never receives any consequences. The problem may even get worse when other employees notice that there are no consequences for this type of behavior. When this happens you now have a bigger problem.
The first step to make before preparing and issuing a written warning letter is specifically defining what the employee has done wrong. The second step is to ask yourself if anyone else has demonstrated this same behavior and if so, what you did about it. Remember, it is extremely important that you treat everyone the same; therefore, if you didn't take action against one you better not take action against someone else. This is the fastest way to be accused of discrimination by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
It is very easy to figure out that some behaviors cannot be tolerated, such as, stealing or fighting; however, some are more difficult to determine. For instance, can an employee have an unlimited number of unexcused absences? Or, is it fine for an employee to arrive late whenever they want?
Producing an employee handbook is an outstanding method to cover these types of policies. By covering all your employment policies in your employee handbook and providing your staff with a copy, it acts as an excellent way of insuring your employees have been made fully aware of them. This is a must for your employee disciplinary program.
Before actually writing the written warning letter it is time to collect all the evidence that you can in order to show clearly that the staff member has violated your employment policy, and you have confirmed you have taken similar action on others. Just to show an example, we will say an employee has had three tardy periods within a ninety day time frame. Also we will say that our written attendance policy, which the employee signed for, states that any employee that incurs three or more tardy periods that are unexcused in a twelve month period may receive discipline.
The written warning letter may be written something like this. "You are being issued this warning letter for excessive tardiness, which is a violation of our company policy. On August 4, 2012, you signed acknowledging that you received our employee handbook that outlines our attendance policy. You were tardy thirty-five minutes on June 4, 2013, twenty-one minutes on July 21, 2013, and twenty-eight minutes on August 28, 2013. Going forward if you violate our attendance policy, or any policy in the future you may be subject to additional disciplinary action, up to and including possible termination.
Preparing a written warning letter for an employee can be this simple. The secret is to only use the facts and keep everything as short as possible. Try to never include your feelings by using words like "I think." By keeping these tips in mind you should not experience any problems.
About the Author:
Learn more specifics on how to make writing a written warning letter an easy process by following simple rules that are laid out on Gregory's website www.leadership-skills-for-life.com. Gregory's website also includes multiple warning letter examples.
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