Progressive discipline is one of the means by which an employer gives an employee a chance to correct poor performance or behaviors and become a successful employee. I think employers are more successful, and more highly regarded in the workforce, if they focus on helping their employees succeed.
If an employer adopts, distributes and follows a progressive discipline process in a fair, consistent manner, and an employee does not correct their performance or conduct within the parameters of the policy and set performance expectations, then the employee should be disciplined and/or terminated. So if you say, “progressive discipline helps you lose bad apples and keep the good ones,” I’d say that the initial goal should be to keep all the “apples” in the basket and help them succeed, instead of aiming to throw some out.
I’d rather take those “apples” that aren’t perfect and first see if there was some way that I could get them to perform up to the required standards. And then, if they don’t measure up to those standards, the “bad apples” would need to be removed so that the remaining “apples” wouldn’t go bad.
Common Progressive Discipline Mistakes
Almost always you will find that managers and supervisors do not look forward to having a conversation with an employee about poor performance, so they end up procrastinating until they’ve really had it with the employee. They’ve reached their boiling point and are ready to terminate the employee, even if the employee hasn’t had a chance to provide an explanation or correct the behavior.
It takes a lot of time and energy for managers and supervisors to communicate with poor performers, and the employers often get frustrated and want to skip most of the steps in the progressive discipline process—even if they have followed them to a tee for a different similarly-situated employee. Or they think that a verbal or written warning one time should be enough before moving straight to terminating the employee.
So when working with “bad apples,” the employer should make the employee aware of what performance expectations they are supposed to be meeting. The manager/supervisor has to do this by giving the employee specific examples, dates and/or times of what they’re not doing and where they’re not meeting expectations, or standards. And, of course, the basic requirements of conduct and job performance should be set out in the progressive discipline policy or guidelines themselves, and the employer should ensure the policy is distributed to all of its employees (and that the employees have acknowledged receipt of it).
Then the employer needs to let the employee know—before moving straight to termination—what he/she needs to do in the future to correct those shortcomings and what the consequences will be if they fail to improve.
Every time a manager/supervisor has to issue a verbal or written warning for an employee, they need to go through the same steps I outlined above. And, it’s very important for management personnel to implement the set progressive discipline policy steps in a uniform way for each employee in order to avoid possible discrimination charges or lawsuits, or even just the appearance of being unfair, which in itself can negatively affect workplace morale.
In my next Insight, I’ll discuss how to use progressive discipline policies.