BY DANIEL J. KRIGERS, PARTNER & HEAD OF EMPLOYMENT LAW AT CHADWICK LAWRENCE
NUMEROUS issues can arise during the course of disciplinary proceedings which are not necessarily catered for in policy documents. This article considers how to tackle these and YOUR human resources department can help the managers responsible for dealing with disciplinary issues by advising on the procedure that should be followed and to ensure consistency of approach by giving examples of disciplinary action taken in the past.
However, care should be taken to ensure that human resources do not influence managers to reach particular findings or to impose particular sanctions. WORKERS have the right to bring a trade union official or a colleague as a companion to any disciplinary hearing or appeal. Unless your disciplinary policy provides otherwise, employees cannot generally insist on bringing anyone else as a companion. However, if a disabled employee requests that someone else be allowed to accompany them, then you will need to think carefully about whether you should agree to this where it may be necessary to ensure compliance with your obligation to make reasonable adjustments.
Only in very rare circumstances IF you are disciplining an employee for persistent lateness and they already have a live final written warning on their file for shouting at a customer, you need to consider whether you can rely on the warning to dismiss them. The answer will usually be ‘yes’ provided the warning is not worded too narrowly.
You may find yourself faced with an employee on a final written warning who has managed to behave themselves until just after the warning expires.
In this situation you cannot rely on the previous warning to justify dismissing the employee if their alleged misconduct on this occasion would not of itself justify dismissal.
As we can see from the issues above, running a disciplinary process is not a simple task and is certainly not a flowchart exercise.
Expert advice should be taken at the outset to ensure fairness is maintained and the business is protected. Rob Gittins (left), managing director at Palletways UK, with Paul Ince (cente), managing director at The Pink Link, and Mike Harrison, operations director at Palletways UK