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Published by Ed Kowalski on August 24th, 2010 in category Management, Management Tips
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| We have an employee who violated our Internet policy last year (spending too much time on non-work-related Internet sites during work hours), and we placed a warning note in his file after discussing the issue with him. Now, a year later, he has not had any further disciplinary problems. Should we maintain the warning note in his file or should we remove it in light of his improved performance?A: Most HR and legal experts agree that it is appropriate for employers to give less credence to past disciplinary actions when an employee’s performance has improved and a substantial period of time has passed, particularly when the disciplinary issues are relatively minor. However, they also advise against entirely removing memos or other disciplinary information from an employee’s personnel file.Here’s the rationale behind this approach. A progressive discipline policy applies increasingly more severe penalties based on whether the violation is a first, second, or on-going occurrence. Typically, both the severity of the problem and the length of time between incidents are considered when you discipline employees for repeat offenses. For relatively minor issues, many policies reduce the importance of previous incidents after a year or more has passed between occurrences. |
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