Employee Discipline Management

Warunika Hettiarachchi
 Define what discipline means

 Understand importance of discipline administration
 Identify types of discipline
 Understand hot-stove rule
 Understand sandwich model and progressive
discipline
 Identify disciplinary offences and penalties
 Understand domestic investigation
 Discipline involves controlling work and behavior of
employees in compliance with all the relevant rules
and regulations in order to achieve organizational
goals and objectives
H.H.D.N.P. Opatha
 Discipline is the practice of making people obey strict

rules of behavior and punishing them when they do
not obey them
Collins Birmingham University English language Dictionary
Based on above definitions the term discipline
involves
 A condition where employees conduct themselves

in accordance with rules and standards of
acceptable behavior
 To make employees obey rules of behavior
 To punish employees when they do not obey rules
of behavior
 Managerial action encouraging employees to
comply with standards of the organization
 A form of training to enforce organizational rules
 To reduce conflicts and confusions
 To control and manage human resources in an orderly
manner
 To ensure the employee’s behavior in accordance with
performance standards, rules and regulations of the
organization
 To achieve organizational goals and objectives
 Increase employee morale

 Preventive discipline
 Corrective discipline
Preventive discipline is action to encourage employees to
follow standards and rules so that infractions do not
occur. The basic objective is to encourage employees’
self discipline.
A self discipline employee has following characteristics
 Accept the rules which happen to face
 Respect the rules
 Observes the rules by him/her self willingly
 Needs no another to direct or supervise him/ her to

adhere to rules
Corrective discipline is an action that follows
violation of a rule and it seeks to discourage further
infractions so that future acts will be in compliance
with rules and regulations.
It involves corrective actions which discourage
repetition of rule violations. Typically the corrective
action is a penalty of some type and is called a
disciplinary action.
Corrective discipline can be in negative approach or
positive approach
1.Preventive Discipline 2.Corrective discipline
 Activities are taken before • Actions are taken after rules
rule violated violated
 Management action taken to • Who violate rules has
encourage employees to “punished”
follow standards
• Take disciplinary actions
 Purpose is to develop self
discipline • Purpose is to prevent future
 Need to communicate infractions

standards
1. To reform the offender
2. To deter others from similar actions
3. To make discipline effective
When it happens or seems a case of serious rule
violation it generally requires an investigation to
determine whether there is a clear rule violation in
fact. This investigation is called internal
disciplinary investigation or domestic inquiry.
1. To do a preliminary investigation
2. To suspend the service pending enquiry
3. To issue a charge sheet
4. To obtain letter of explanation and make
decisions based on it
5. To conduct a formal inquiry
6. Determine the punishment and implement
When a particular employee or employees is/ are
alleged to have broken a rule or rules(more serious),
to do a preliminary investigation is a must. The
objective of a preliminary investigation is to ascertain
whether there is a sufficient amount of evidence to
support rule violation.
This investigation should be done by an experienced
manager in a very shorter period of time generally
within one week.
In case of a very serious rule violation, which leads to
dismissal of the employee if proven, a need for immediate
suspension of the suspected employee’ service arises.
Suspension will become needed if one or two or all of the
following is/ are met.
 If the rule violation is serious
 If the suspected employee’s presence at work will disturb the

on-going investigation activities
 If the suspected employee may be violent or threaten
witnesses or change or hide or destroy relevant documents.
Generally the suspension period may be two weeks and it may
go even up to the end of the disciplinary investigation
Udayangani Thalgaspitiya
Third step of the process of disciplinary investigation is to issue a charge sheet
to the accused employee by the relevant authority, usually the HR director/
manager on behalf of the top management.
The charge sheet should
 Be written
 Be clear and brief
 Describe the rule violation
 Indicate accusations for each rule violation
 Ask an explanation in writing for each rule violation within a stipulated time
period
 Indicate how and to whom the letter of explanation should be sent
Udayangani Thalgaspitiya
Depending on the nature of the explanation sent by the
accused the management has to make decisions regarding the
continuity of the investigation. There are five main possible
natures of the letter of explanation.
 The accused accept that he/ she is guilty of all the charges
 The accused denies all the charges with acceptable reasons
 The accused denies all the charges with unacceptable

reasons
 The accused accepts that he/ she is guilty of some charges
and denies other charges
 The accused does not reply
No action can be taken against any employee
without giving a proper chance of defense and
he/she has the right to giving the evidence in
this inquiry. There for having formal inquiry is
very essential.
 Very important to appoint qualified managers in terms of
education, experience, honesty confidence and impartiality as
inquiring officers.
 Good to have the panel consisting of three persons
- one qualified in HRM
- One qualified in law
- One qualified in general management
 Fixing a date and a place suitable for the inquiry should be
done
 A notice of inquiry should be sent to the accused by registered
post if he/ she is on suspension.
To determine a penalty/ punishment/ sanction against
the employee who was found to be guilty by the
disciplinary investigation is the last step of an internal
disciplinary inquiry. It is for top management in
consultation with HR director/ manager to decide what
penalty would be appropriate if the employee has been
found guilty.
Penalties or Sanctions refer to actions that follow rule
violations or infractions. Penalties are taken under
Corrective Discipline. It is possible to divide penalties
into two major categories.
1.Minor- verbal warning, written warning
2. Major- Demotion, dismissal
1. Oral warning
2. Written warning
3. Final written warning
4. Fining
5. Suspension of work for two days without pay
6. Suspension of work for four-days without pay
7. Suspension of work for one week without pay
8. Suspension of work for one month without pay
9. Stoppage of salary increment
10. Stoppage of applying for a promotion
11. Transfer to a difficult area/ unpleasant work
12. Reduction of seniority
13. Demotion
14. Termination of employment/dismissal
 Serious
 Non serious
Having come to know any rule violation, it is important

for the relevant manager to know decide whether
the violation is serious or non serious
Serious- If a very important rule has been violated it is
a serious offences
Non serious- If the rule violated is an important one(
not very important) the offence is non serious
 Nature of job
 Nature of place
 Loss involved
 Frequency
1. Nature of the offence
2. Consequences of the offence
3. Previous offences done by the employee
4. Whether relevant rule or rules has/have been properly
communicated
5. Job performance record
6. Special contributions made by the employee to the organization
7. Whether there was any provocation
8. Whether the offender was physically fit or not
9. Previous disciplinary actions inflicted
10. Past disciplinary actions inflicted by other organizations engaged in
the same industry for similar rule violations
11. Employee’s length of service with the organization
Progressive discipline means that there are stronger
penalties for repeated offences. The purpose is to
give an employee an opportunity for self correction
before more serious penalties are applied. A
progressive discipline is as follows
 Informal talk
 Verbal warning
 Written warning with a record in personnel file

Rule: Every worker must not leave workplace during work time without
permission of his/ her superior in- charge
Time of Violation Penalty

First Informal talk
Second Verbal warning
Written warning with a
Third
record in personal file
One week suspension from
Fourth work without pay
Fifth Suspension for one month
without pay
Sixth Demotion
Dismissal
Seventh Udayangani Thalgaspitiya
In case of non- serious offence( violation of a rule that
is not very important) for the first time ( or may be
up to second time), a counseling approach is
recommended instead of punitive approach.
Examples of non serious offences
o Late attendance
o Failure to inform absence
o Loitering
o Wearing of untidy or dirty uniforms/ cloths whilst

on job
1. Sandwich approach/model
2. Participative/ direct approach
This approach does not involve a discussion and it is
more one- way communication. Sandwich approach
refers to that a corrective comment is sandwich
between two positive comments in order to make the
corrective comment more acceptable.
This approach involves the following steps
1. Manager informally invites the offending employee
to talk about an important thing
2. Manager informs the rule violation specially with
date, time , place etc.
3. Manger listens to version/ response of the
offending employee
4. Both attempt to find out what is causing the
problem of discipline
5. Both discuss to find a solution and implement it

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Warunika Hettiarachchi

 Define what discipline means

 Identify types of discipline

 Understand hot-stove rule

 Understand sandwich model and progressive

 Discipline is the practice of making people obey strict

 A condition where employees conduct themselves

 Increase employee morale

 Respect the rules

 Observes the rules by him/her self willingly

 Needs no another to direct or supervise him/ her to

 Need to communicate infractions

 If the suspected employee’s presence at work will disturb the

 The accused denies all the charges with acceptable reasons

 The accused denies all the charges with unacceptable

Having come to know any rule violation, it is important

 Written warning with a record in personnel file

Time of Violation Penalty

o Failure to inform absence

o Wearing of untidy or dirty uniforms/ cloths whilst

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