1. Supervision
Chapter 5: Employee
Discipline

2. • Good managers will handle conflict in
a manner that improves the
organization.
• Employees poor performance and
poor attitudes directly and negatively
affect your work unit’s efficiency and
effectiveness.
• Poor employee performance effects
morale and performance of your
entire work unit.
Employee Discipline

3. • Employee discipline can be a positive
experience.
• Two main reasons to discipline your
employees exist:
– Performance problems
– Misconduct
• Always carry out discipline as soon
after the incident as possible—you
can deal with problems before they
escalate.
Discipline

4. • You’re a
manager - not a
psychiatrist or
psychologist.
• If your
employees are
performing
above standard,
reward them for
their efforts.
Performance

5. • If they’re performing below standard,
you need to find out why (possibly a
process, motivation, or training
problem is out of your employees’
control) and, if necessary, discipline
them.
• When you apply discipline, use it
consistently and fairly.
Performance

6. • The two-track system of discipline includes
one set of discipline options for
performance problems and another for
misconduct.
• Progressive discipline means that you
always select the least severe step that
results in the behavior that you want.
• You definitely don’t want to make
discipline only an annual event by saving
all your employee’s problems for his or her
periodic performance appraisal.
Two Tracks of
Discipline

7. Performance Problems
• If you’ve done your job right, each of your
employees has a job description and a set of
performance standards.
• When it comes to employee discipline, you’re
primarily concerned with correcting unacceptable
performance.
• Use the least severe discipline step first. The
steps below are listed in order of severity.
– Verbal counseling.
– Written counseling.
– Negative performance evaluation.
– Demotion.
– Termination.

8. Misconduct
• Misconduct is usually considered a much
more serious offense than performance
shortcomings because it indicates a
problem with your employees’ attitudes or
ethical beliefs.
• When you discipline your employees for
misconduct, you put them on notice that
you won’t tolerate their behavior.

9. Misconduct
• The following discipline steps are listed
from least severe to most severe.
– Verbal warning.
– Written warning.
– Reprimand.
– Suspension.
– Termination

10. Five Parts of
Disciplining
• Describing the unacceptable behavior
– Specify exactly what the employee did
wrong and when the behavior
occurred.
– Focus on the behavior and not on the
individual.
• Expressing the impact to the work unit
– When an employee engages in
unacceptable behavior the behavior
typically affects a work unit negatively.

11. Five Parts of
Disciplining
• Specifying the required changes.
– Tell your employee the exact actions
that you want him or her to adopt.
– Tell the employee that his or her
behavior must be in accordance with
an established performance standard
or company policy.

12. Five Parts of
Disciplining
• Outlining the
consequences.
– If the unacceptable
behavior continues,
you need to have a
discussion about the
consequences.
– Make sure that you
get the message
across clearly and
unequivocally and that
your employee
understands it.

13. Five Parts of
Disciplining
• Providing emotional support.
– Give your employee an emotional boost by
expressing your support for his or her efforts.
– Make this support sincere and heartfelt—you
do want your employee to improve, right?
• Molding it all together.
– Put the five parts together into a unified
statement that you deliver to your wayward
employees.
– Although you’ll undoubtedly discuss the
surrounding issues in some detail, make the
script be the heart of your discipline session.

14. Performance Improvement
Plan
• The performance improvement plan (PIP) is a
crucial part of the discipline process because it
sets definite steps for the employee to
undertake to improve performance within a
fixed period of time.
• A PIP consists of the following three parts:
– Goal statement.
– Schedule for attainment.
– Required resources/training.
• To assist your employees in implementing their
improvement plans, schedule regular progress
reporting meetings with them on a daily,
weekly, or monthly basis.

15. • Although disciplining an employee
can be an unpleasant experience, it
can also be an opportunity for growth
for yourself and the employee. The
employee will learn how to improve
his or her performance, and you will
gain practice in dealing with conflict
in a positive, manageable way.
Summary

16. Copyright Notice
© 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction or translation of this work beyond that
permitted in section 117 of the 1976 United States
Copyright Act without express permission of the copyright
owner is unlawful. Request for further information should
be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley
& Sons, Inc. The purchaser may make back-up copies for
his/her use only and not for distribution or resale. The
Publisher assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions,
or damages caused by the use of these programs or from
the use of the information herein.
All clipart and photos courtesy of Microsoft.com