Thursday 12 September 2013

The Important Elements Of Issuing A Written Warning Letter

By Gregory Covey


One of the most miserable parts about being in a supervisory role is that there will come a time when you must issue a written warning letter in order to make sure your staff's productivity and morale stays high. No matter what you believe, employees know when someone is not following the rules within their department. The morale of the staff will drop if you do not act immediately.

Ever since Adam and Eve were put in the garden employees have pushed the rules. Therefore, if they notice that nothing happens to an employee that calls in sick all the time they will quickly understand that it is ok when rules are broken. So if you do nothing there is a good chance that your production rate will fall dramatically.

Before ever producing a written warning letter for anyone on your staff it is very crucial that you take the time to produce and inform everyone of what your rules are so that there is no questions about them. One of the most effective ways to do this is to produce an employee handbook that details all your policies and the penalties if they are violated. Suggested policies could be misconduct, attendance, disrespectful behavior, tardiness, stealing, etc.

One very important factor after you have produced an employee handbook is to make sure that everyone signs for their own copy of it. If you do a quick search online you will learn that you can get a simple template for an employee handbook for a little under fifty dollars. On the other hand if you really want to get something with all the bells and whistles you can spend much more.

Making sure that you are treating everyone the same is crucial to the success of any disciplinary program. Law suits after law suits are filed against those employers that take action against one employee but not against someone else for violating the same rule. It will do them no good to try and convince others that one employee is performing better than another, because at the end of the day we need to treat everyone equally. Selectively enforcing the rules will cost you.

It is important to only state the facts when putting together the actual written warning letter. Using words like "I feel" are emotional and should not be used. The actual written warning should have within it the following; the specific violation, all the details surrounding it, whether the employee has received prior disciplinary action, what is necessary for them to improve, and finally what will be the results of them violating another company policy.

Beginning with the least amount of disciplinary action and progressing to penalties that are more severe, finally ending with termination is a suggested way handling your disciplinary program. There are some instances that will demand immediately terminating someone if they violate a policy, such as fighting or stealing. As you develop your employee handbook it is a good time to make sure you consider all your options. Then, provided you follow your own policies and insure that you are treating all employees consistently and fairly you should be just fine.




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