An incident occurred recently that made me revisit the subject of disciplinary action, specifically, progressive discipline. I revised the discipline form that the supervisors have long disliked. The new disciplinary action format is straight forward and addresses employee actions in behavioral terms.
Telling an employee, "You have a bad attitude," gives the employee no information about the behavior you want to see the employee change or improve. Better? Say, "When you slam your parts down hard on your work bench, you risk breaking the part; you are also disturbing your coworkers. The noise disturbs them and they are concerned about parts flying through the air."
Just as you are as specific as possible when you praise or recognize positive employee behavior and contributions, you are specific when you ask an employee to stop or improve negative actions.
The incident that precipitated my rewrite of the disciplinary action form was a dilly. Two employees (who are dating outside of work) held a screaming match in the middle of the plant in view and hearing of most other employees. Check conduct for this spectacle. Take a look at the new progressive disciplinary action form. I also added employee counseling steps to make sure the most important aspect of disciplinary action occurs.
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