If an employee wishes to appeal, they should appeal in writing within an appropriate timescale. This should be confirmed in your policy and in the letter confirming the outcome. You should write back to them, inviting them to attend a disciplinary appeal meeting.

An appeal hearing should not be a repeat of the original disciplinary hearing, but it should focus on the reasons why employee believes the original disciplinary outcome was unfair.

Ideally, the disciplinary appeal hearing should be chaired by a different person to the chair of the original disciplinary hearing. Appropriate notes should be recorded.

A disciplinary appeal hearing may decide to uphold the original disciplinary decision, a lesser disciplinary outcome more appropriate or no action taken. It is not appropriate to increase the level of warning given.

The decision of the disciplinary appeal hearing should be confirmed in writing to the employee. This outcome is final and no other appeal stage is required.

What letters should I send?

We have templates for all types of letters required for disciplinary. We provide this to our clients as part of our service.

If you require further HR Advice, explanation or support in this or any other HR related area, please call us today on 0800 612 4772 or get a Free Quote for HR Services via our website.

When considering formal disciplinary action, it is important to conduct an investigation. This should include an investigation meeting with the employee to ensure they are clearly aware of the matter and that it may lead to disciplinary action.

Although employees are not legally entitled to be accompanied at investigatory meetings, it is worth considering giving an employee the opportunity to have a companion at the meeting. Dependent on your disciplinary procedures, you may already specify restrictions on who may accompany the employee at an investigation.

In cases that are potentially serious, it may be appropriate to formally suspend an employee from work. This is normally on full pay until the issue is resolved. Once the investigation stage is complete, you should invite the employee in writing to attend a formal disciplinary hearing.

When inviting the employee to a formal disciplinary hearing, you should ensure the employee is given enough notice to arrange a companion and adequately prepare for the hearing. The employee should also be given copies of any investigation notes before the hearing. The employee is legally entitled to bring a work colleague or Trade Union Representative (even if you don’t recognise a union). You are not obliged to allow them to bring a family member or partner – we advise against this approach.

We recommend that the disciplinary hearing is chaired by someone other than the person who conducted the investigation. We appreciate this may not always be practical or possible in small organisations, but consideration should always be given to this.
During the hearing, the issues at hand should be detailed, the evidence presented and the employee asked for their responses and explanations. It may be that the employee also wishes to raise mitigating circumstances.

It is important to remain professional at all times during the hearing and avoid being confrontational. The employee should be given the opportunity to ask questions and to present any evidence they have.

Notes should be taken during the hearing, and it is good practice to provide a copy to the employee. However, if you don’t wish to do this you should ensure it is held on file as the employee has the right to request information you store about them. It would be helpful to have another manager at the hearing to take notes for you.

Before any disciplinary decision is made, the hearing should be adjourned to allow the chairperson to consider all the facts. The chairperson may then decide what, or if any action is required. If you wish to take action this should either be a written warning, final written warning or dismissal. If dismissal is an escalation of the disciplinary procedure, notice is payable and in the cases of gross misconduct notice is not payable.

The employee should be notified of the outcome in writing, and if any action has been taken it should clearly state their grounds for appeal. It is also to detail why you have taken action and what improvement you expect if appropriate. The outcome should be confirmed in writing as soon as possible, and your procedures may specify how soon after the meeting you do this.

If you require further HR Advice, explanation or support in this or any other HR related area, please call us today on 0800 612 4772 or get a Free Quote for HR Services via our website.

Before discussing matters with an employee, you should determine what you are going to say to them. You should consider the basis for your discussions – this might include making notes before meeting to backup your argument. For example, if you wish to discuss their performance, it will be useful to document specific concerns you have and examples of when they have not performed. If you have a performance management process in place, it would be beneficial to refer to this as it will provide information on performance levels and confirm when this was previously discussed.

During the meeting, keep notes that are detailed enough to give a good summary of the key points and what objectives have been set. This should always include a review date and make sure you review this when agreed. If you have something you need to do to support improvement, make sure you do so – you don’t want the employee raising this at a later date.

Keeping written notes and summarising these to the employee demonstrates your commitment to improve the area concerned and deal without using the disciplinary procedure. A paper trail is also useful if the matter is not resolved and occurs again in the future. It will also help you should the matter eventually lead to an employment tribunal – which none of us want!

If you require further HR Advice, explanation or support in this or any other HR related area, please call us today on 0800 612 4772 or get a Free Quote for HR Services via our website.

Before taking any action, it is vital you identify the problem and any underlying causes. Is the issue related to conduct, performance or attendance?

If it’s conduct, depending on the seriousness of the actions, you could have grounds to dismiss. This would normally include serious issues such as theft, assault or consuming alcohol or drugs at work.

If it’s performance, then you need to address what is causing the poor performance. A meeting should be held to establish the causes – normally this is sufficient to improve performance, providing the manager holding the meeting gives effective feedback. All details should be documented, and the employee should be fully aware what is expected of them and why. SMART objectives are key to this –

Specific
Measured
Achievable
Realistic
Timed

For less serious matters, the issue should be addressed informally. This gives a structured approach the discussing the matter with the employee and following it up with specific recommendations.

More serious matters are best dealt with using a formal disciplinary procedure.

If you require further HR Advice, explanation or support in this or any other HR related area, please call us today on 0800 612 4772 or get a Free Quote for HR Services via our website.

Unfortunately, managing people or running your own business means at some time or another you are going to face a problem with an employee, and you might need to consider whether disciplinary action is necessary.

We always get asked how to handle this, and for many businesses, their initial thoughts are to remove the person from the business. Employment law rightfully does not allow this (unless the problem is serious enough to warrant it) and therefore a disciplinary process should always be followed.

All employers should have written disciplinary polices and procedures, and SMEs are not excluded. We often hear feedback from smaller businesses that as they only employ a handful of employees they don’t need to have these procedures in place – wrong!

ACAS introduced a code of practice this year, and we have already provided updates in our various blogs regarding this. However, it is useful to follow these steps when you think you might have a disciplinary issue.

Last year (2008) the number of individual employment tribunal claims filed rose by 15% and the most common issues raised were dismissal and redundancy.

Businesses that don’t have a formal discipline & grievance procedure in place could face automatic unfair dismissal claims and given the fact the average awards for unfair dismissals made against businesses last year was £8058 (max could be >£64,000) the costs of getting it wrong could easily put employers out of business.

Does Your business have a formal discipline & grievance procedure in place? HR Services from EmployEasily can help – call us today on 0800 612 4772 or get a free quote via our webiste.

Last year, UK Businesses that lost unfair dismissal cases at Employment Tribunals paid out an average £8058 in awards and in discrimination cases, the average awards they had to pay out exceeded of £12,000!!

On top of the cost of the awards, many of these businesses will also have incurred legal costs in defending the claims, making losing even more expensive!

Could your business afford to lose >£8000?

From as little as £1 a day, HR Services from EmployEasily HR can benefit Your business in many ways:

G – Get HR skills and expertise in to your business at lower costs and boost YOUR profits by identifying the real HR issues that are holding your business back

A – Access practical, commercially aware HR advice and support when you need it and cut costs caused by staff absence, poor performance and employment tribunal claims

I – Indemnify Your business from costs associated with defending an employment tribunal claim (awards and legal costs) with up to £100,000 cover per case and £1 Million on aggregate per year.

N – Never have to worry about compliance with employment legislation ever again. We’ll ensure all of your HR documents (contracts of employment, HR policies & procedures, etc) are kept up to date

You insure your car, your house, your life so why not protect your business too?

Protect Your Business Now – Just Ask Us How!

Contact Us today on 0800 612 4772 to arrange a free, confidential consultation or obtain a FREE HR Health Check via our main website.

EmployEasily HR Services Ltd: Preventing Personnel Problems!

To get full details and book you place visit the main EmployEasily HR Services website or contact us on 0141 572 8427.

Seats are limited so book now to avoid disappointment.

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Did you know that over the last five years, the average staff absence rate in the UK has actually varied between 3.8% and 4.4% and that these average rates of staff absence equate to 7.4 days of lost productivity per employee, per year?

The cost of that lost productivity will vary company to company but on average that coupled with the direct costs associated with staff absence equates to a loss of approximately £922 per employee, per year.

At EmployEasily HR Services Scotland we help our Clients to reduce their costs and protect their businesses by providing cost-effective HR Services that include designing and implementing staff absence policies and procedures aimed at delivering a positive return on investment.

When we look at tackling staff absence for our Clients we look at a number of things but the most important thing we look at is what their current HR Management strategy is in relation to staff absence.

In circumstances where we have helped our Clients to reduce staff absence, we have implemented the key foundations necessary to effectively manage staff absence on an ongoing basis including:

• Good HR strategy, policies and procedures including absence measurement
• Line manager training and staff communication
• Confronting poor attendance
• A Review of Sick Pay Scheme
• Return to work interviews
• A Review of occupational health support
• Fairness, flexibility and the working environment
• Preventative measures

With these key components in place, businesses are able to effectively measure staff absence, identify the root causes of staff absence and correctly manage staff absence in a way that will deliver reductions in staff absence and improvements in staff productivity and morale ultimately delivering cost reductions and improved profit margins.

If you’d like more information on how effective HR Services can help you to reduce your costs and manage your staff absence issues more effectively call visit the main EmployEasily HR website or call us today, locally in Glasgow on 0141 572 8427 or from elsewhere in the UK at a local rate on 0845 642 2009.

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