An Ounce of Prevention

Most of your employees will never create any major problems for your organization during their tenure. However, there is a small percentage of your employees who will create turmoil whether by being poor performers, or worst case through some level of external complaint either through a State or Federal agency such as the Department of Labor, State Unemployment Agency, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or by retaining outside legal counsel.

Like it or not, businesses are often put on the defensive by employees even when the employee compliant has no merit or basis. Through our years of HR experience, we have seen too many situations where large amounts of time, effort and money are spent to defend the company even in cases where the company did nothing wrong.

What can you do to protect your organization from employee complaints that have no basis? Let’s focus on the old football adage in this situation, the best offense is a good defense. Every company, regardless of its size, should have a well thought out employee disciplinary process AND managers who are properly trained to administer the process. If you have the process, but managers aren’t trained to use the disciplinary process correctly then it’s worthless. If you are saying to yourself, we don’t have a well outlined disciplinary process or managers trained to use the process if it does exist, then you have work to do.

Possible reasons for disciplinary action could include: employee misconduct, harassment, discrimination, absenteeism, poor work performance, workplace bullying, continued tardiness. Possible disciplinary actions might include: verbal warning, written warning, suspension, performance improvement plan, retraining, demotion, temporary pay cut, suspension or termination.

We can help you by putting together a well thought out disciplinary process for your organization and also provide training to get all managers/supervisors equipped to understand their roles and the criticality of their roles in protecting the company. 

Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure especially concerning protecting your company and minimizing your liability exposure.