Hi,

4 Key Steps in Administering Employee Discipline

As in many other situations, the Pareto principle applies to performance management. Twenty percent of your employees will create 80 percent of your performance issues and seem to suck 180 percent of your energy.

And, as much as you would like it to, ignoring the problems will not make them go away. Such an approach usually leads to escalation.

Here are a few key steps that can help a manager administer employee discipline.

Clearly communicate policies, rules and performance standards. There are two parts to this step: you need to have standards and you need to make them available to your employees.
Make sure employees understand policies, rules and performance standards. Just because you develop, publish and even circulate standards doesn’t mean that your employees are going to read them. Take time during orientation or after policy revisions to explain the standards and get your employees to sign off.
Regularly review performance. Performance management is not only an annual event. Incidents, both positive and negative should be acknowledged or addressed as they occur.
Act promptly to address poor behaviour/performance. The corollary to step 3, don’t wait two weeks to address an incident or behaviour that needs correction.
And, whatever you do, avoid quick decisions and never discipline when you are angry.