Managing Discipline and Dismissals

If you are an employer, the chances are that you will at some time or another have to discipline or even dismiss one of your employees.

It is important that matters of discipline are dealt with in a timely manner, fairly, consistently and within the boundaries of your own internal disciplinary procedures.

The purpose of the disciplinary procedure is to correct an employee’s behaviour when it has transgressed the rules. It is a mechanism for informing the employee that his or her conduct is not acceptable to the business and needs to change. If warnings and the correct amount of assistance do not cause the employee to improve his or her behaviour then ultimately it may lead to dismissal.

Those with people management responsibilities should be fully trained in how to use the Company disciplinary procedures to ensure that in the event that an employee is dismissed, steps were taken to ensure that the dismissal was fair.

Successful claims for unfair dismissal can be very costly to businesses, so an investment in training your managers in how to conduct disciplinary hearings can be very beneficial.