There’s a wealth of information, current guidelines and detailed resources available within the Human Resources community to support discipline-related policies and behavior management in the workplace. HR Management Associations and Government services websites, for example, provide great examples and a guiding light to ensure that employers have the resources to make the right decisions and follow an equitable process that’s fair to the employee while also protecting the organization from litigation.
Employee discipline and applying influences toward more-positive workplace behavior is a functional area of HR data management that is often relegated by many organizations to the use paper-based systems, hard copy filing methods and spreadsheets. It is also common for electronic data that is managed for disciplinary action and grievances, within those isolated spreadsheets, not to be exchanged nor interfaced with human capital solutions for reporting purposes.
Managing the Stages of Disciplinary Action
Following a misconduct, an infraction or a behavioral issue that occurs in the workplace and needs to be corrected, the various stages to address the matter follow a methodical process, which vary depending upon the severity of the issue. Details regarding the specific dates, investigation and communication with witnesses, items of evidence, and meeting notes for sessions that occur with the employee and the manager(s) involved, all need to be captured to paint a complete picture of the situation. Paper-based record keeping methods or multi-tab spreadsheets are common tools used to support all of these tasks in the various stages of disciplinary action.
Supporting Documentation
Letters are typically prepared, discussed and issued to employees regarding disciplinary matters. These letters often require the employee’s signature to acknowledge each stage of a disciplinary process. Letters to support a warning or multiple warnings, to notify the employee of a suspension, or to advise the employee of their termination as the outcome of the process, are generally stored away in hard-copy files. These paper records are typically stored in files among other evidence-related documents or photographs to support the discipline-related records. Unsecured spreadsheets containing disciplinary details, often located on shared drives or someone’s workstation, should also be a consideration within companies that use these types of record management tools.
Automation and Alternatives to Rudimentary Record Keeping Practices
There are many opportunities to more-efficiently support the occurrence of disciplinary action and grievances in the workplace. Human capital management (HCM) solutions which provide effective dating for each step of remedial action, electronic meeting notes and configurability for the various stages of these events allow the organization to methodically navigate through the discipline and resolution process. Automated workflow may also be configured to ensure that the right documents are prepared, the supporting information is gathered and recorded, and the appropriate meetings are scheduled and held within the entire process. Managing these details within your HCM solution using workflow ensures that each stage of the process has been dealt with and is recorded within a consistent and reliable system of accountability.
Accessing the Data to Support Decision Making
Access to the disciplinary records by means of secured viewing, or through the system’s report writer, provides an effective alternative to otherwise locating and photocopying fading paper records, or extracting pieces of data from a spreadsheet each time that the disciplinary data may need to be retrieved or shared within a meeting. Human capital solutions which provide the capability to securely attach scanned documents provide timely access to these items, to eliminate concern over misplaced files or paper records which can be lost or accidentally destroyed. Centralized reporting through the use of a unified HCM solution also affords the capture of other discipline-relevant data, such as performance, attendance and training records, for example. Consider these automated alternatives and centralized reporting opportunities within your HCM solution implementation.
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