Human Resources – How To Deal With Misconduct

An important role of the manager is to discipline their staff. Disciplining can relate to performance related tasks or it can relate to the more serious issue of misconduct. Misconduct is considered to be a more serious matter and needs to be treated differently compared to performance issues.

When misconduct occurs it means that there is a problem with the employee’s attitude and behaviour towards their job. Misconduct can be put into two categories. The first one is serious misconduct and this can be for example, a member of staff who consistently comes in late for work in the morning. The other category is gross misconduct. This is more serious and if not resolved this situation can lead to the employee being dismissed. Gross misconduct can involve verbal abuse, stealing and even violence.

When it comes to misconduct the consequences can be swift and severe. It is important that it is made clear that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated. Every organisation should have a disciplinary procedure. Each organisations procedure can have different levels of warnings before a dismissal is given. At a minimum there should be at least two warnings before an employee is dismissed when there has been no improvement in their behaviour. However, if the case is a gross misconduct issue then, dismissal may have to be the immediate result.

The process of a disciplinary procedure uses an incremental approach with each warning more serious than the one before it.

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