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 are some very basic rules to follow when issuing employee discipline. For some supervisors they will unfortunately wait until the employee has crossed so many lines that they blow up saying and doing things which could end up getting them sued. The problem is that many times new supervisors will wrongly take this route because they believe the employee will change their behavior without their input.
Well, the behavior rarely if ever improves and in most cases continues to get worse since the employee isn't suffering any consequences for their poor behavior. In addition, other employees also see that nothing is happening and may begin exhibiting poor behavior also. Now you have a real problem on your hands.
Determining the infraction the employee committed is the initial step you must take when writing a written warning letter. Step number two is to review what actions, if any, you took on another employee within your workforce that committed the same infraction. Please keep in mind that one of the most important things you can do is to make sure you are treating everyone the same, so if you took action in the past you better take it in the future also. This is very important unless you want to receive a discrimination claim from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Although there are many types of behaviors that it goes without saying are wrong, such as, fighting and stealing, but there are many others that may not be. As an example, is it ok for an employee to call in sick as often as they want? Can an employee show up late any time they wish?
An employee handbook is an excellent way to cover these types of issues. If you outline these in an employee handbook and you have your staff sign for the document, it provides a way to clearly demonstrate you have made your employees aware of you policies. This is very important to any employee disciplinary program.
After you have reviewed the incident and have determined that the employee clearly violated your employment policy, it is now time to collect all the relevant evidence related to the incident before you actually write the written warning letter. For our example written below, our employee has been late three times in the last three months. In this same example, our employee has signed for a copy of the employee handbook which clearly outlines that any employee incurring three or more periods of tardiness in any twelve month period may receive disciplinary action.
This is a quick example of how your written warning letter could be structured. "This warning letter is being issued to you for having three tardy periods within a twelve month time frame. This is a violation of our written company policy that you signed for on July 23, 2011, when you received a copy of our employee handbook. Specifically, you were thirty-two minutes tardy on May 3, 2013; you were seventeen minutes tardy on June 24, 2013, and forty-four minutes tardy on July 17, 2013. In the event you violate our attendance policy, or any other employment policy, you may receive disciplinary action that could include possible dismissal.
This is how simple it can be writing a written warning letter to an employee. The key thing to remember is to keep it short and only state the facts. Avoid putting anything related to feelings, such as, "I believe". If you follow these simple rules you should have no problems.
There are some very basic rules to follow when issuing employee discipline. For some supervisors they will unfortunately wait until the employee has crossed so many lines that they blow up saying and doing things which could end up getting them sued. The problem is that many times new supervisors will wrongly take this route because they believe the employee will change their behavior without their input.
Well, the behavior rarely if ever improves and in most cases continues to get worse since the employee isn't suffering any consequences for their poor behavior. In addition, other employees also see that nothing is happening and may begin exhibiting poor behavior also. Now you have a real problem on your hands.
Determining the infraction the employee committed is the initial step you must take when writing a written warning letter. Step number two is to review what actions, if any, you took on another employee within your workforce that committed the same infraction. Please keep in mind that one of the most important things you can do is to make sure you are treating everyone the same, so if you took action in the past you better take it in the future also. This is very important unless you want to receive a discrimination claim from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Although there are many types of behaviors that it goes without saying are wrong, such as, fighting and stealing, but there are many others that may not be. As an example, is it ok for an employee to call in sick as often as they want? Can an employee show up late any time they wish?
An employee handbook is an excellent way to cover these types of issues. If you outline these in an employee handbook and you have your staff sign for the document, it provides a way to clearly demonstrate you have made your employees aware of you policies. This is very important to any employee disciplinary program.
After you have reviewed the incident and have determined that the employee clearly violated your employment policy, it is now time to collect all the relevant evidence related to the incident before you actually write the written warning letter. For our example written below, our employee has been late three times in the last three months. In this same example, our employee has signed for a copy of the employee handbook which clearly outlines that any employee incurring three or more periods of tardiness in any twelve month period may receive disciplinary action.
This is a quick example of how your written warning letter could be structured. "This warning letter is being issued to you for having three tardy periods within a twelve month time frame. This is a violation of our written company policy that you signed for on July 23, 2011, when you received a copy of our employee handbook. Specifically, you were thirty-two minutes tardy on May 3, 2013; you were seventeen minutes tardy on June 24, 2013, and forty-four minutes tardy on July 17, 2013. In the event you violate our attendance policy, or any other employment policy, you may receive disciplinary action that could include possible dismissal.
This is how simple it can be writing a written warning letter to an employee. The key thing to remember is to keep it short and only state the facts. Avoid putting anything related to feelings, such as, "I believe". If you follow these simple rules you should have no problems.
About the Author:
Receive much more information 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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