Misconduct

How to deal with employee misconduct

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Dealing with Misconduct and Resulting Terminations

Is employee misconduct driving you crazy? Read this before taking action.

Despite an employee's grave misconduct, the employer and the human resource department often find themselves inadequately equipped to handle such individuals. Employers must develop guidelines so managers and Human Resource professionals can handle misconduct in a consistent, efficient and fair manner.

Implications of misconduct

How do you define misconduct? There are several ways. Some types of misconduct are not too serious while others are grave enough to force management to fire an employee. Some forms of misconduct include intentional breaking of rules, fraud against the company, working while drunk or drugged, having drugs in ones possession and violating the company’s code of conduct. Other types of misconduct involve other people like undignified behavior towards coworkers or higher authority or behavior that may affect the reputation of other employees or the company.

Principles associated with misconduct

First, the employer or the management must allow the employee a chance to explain his or her behavior. Once the employee has had his or her say, management can decide whether the employee is guilty of misconduct serious enough for termination. At the same time, the manager should keep all information confidential. No one but the manager, the manager's supervisor and the Human Resources Department need to know the details. It is important for the manager to remain professional. Besides having a chance to explain of matter, the manager should allow the accused employee to have a person to support him or her at the meetings. Someone from Human Resources is usually a good choice.

Procedures involved

Sometimes misconduct is very serious. In such cases, management needs to conduct a preliminary investigation. Once the company has completed the investigation, the manager should make the employee aware of the findings. Once again, the manager can ask for the employee's side of the story. Using this evidence, management, with the help of a Human Resources representative, must decide what to do. They must decide how they should discipline the employee or whether they should fire the worker.

Steps involved in misconduct

There are three steps involved in a case of misconduct by an employee. First, the employer should coach the employee when the misconduct occurs. The manager should explain what the employee did wrong and how to fix future behavior. The next step is a formal warning. The manager will have to issue one of these to the employee when he or she repeats the inappropriate behavior thus ignoring the manager. Finally when this fails, the employer can choose to terminate the employee.

Drafting Sample Employee Discipline Letter

It is important to remember a court can use the letter as legal evidence in the future, so it is important to draft a copy and have someone else in the human resource department review it. It is helpful to have templates ready ahead of time that management has drafted and reviewed with the help of legal counsel.

The sample employee discipline letter we provided is a guide. The idea behind the discipline letter is to provide a paper trail for future reference. If the employee’s behavior does not improve, then managers can use this invaluable documentation to clarify the procedures taken to warn the employee that they may lose their job if they did not change.

The manager should mail the sample employee discipline letter to an employee or hand it to them directly. If you choose to mail the letter to the employee, then be certain you use certified mail. You do not want the employee claiming they did not receive the letter, in case further action has to be done. It may even be wise to include a receipt notice that they have to sign and return to the human resource office. In this way, a business owner or manager eliminates liability on their part and can hold the employee solely responsibility for any future missteps.

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