Illegal or Unethical Conduct
If an employee is involved in any form of illegal or unethical conduct, then such an act would of necessity warrant a disciplinary measure from the employer. Whenever such allegation are made against an employee, it is incumbent on the employer to ensure that thorough investigations are carried out concerning the said allegations before any disciplinary measure is taken on the offender.
The investigation must give sufficient accurate evidence to prove that the employee did really commit the infraction, as such, if the offence is contained in the code of ethics for the institution, the policies thereby must be adhered to the letter (Morris, 2010, p. 1).
Examples of such unethical conducts include but are not limited to; insubordination, theft, fraud and dishonesty, habitual absence without leave, habitual late attendance etcetera.
Under-performance or Incompetency
Professional incompetency and under-performance on the part of the employee are some of the vices which can warrant a disciplinary action to be taken by the employer. For the employer to establish the validity of these kinds of allegations, it may take a short lived but timely investigation.
Having ascertained the truth of the matter, it is incumbent upon the employer to make a documentation of the findings in anticipation of any disciplinary measure or follow up initiative within the immediate future.
In a bid to establishing these facts, the employer may compare the said employee incompetency or under-performance with prior infractions associated with the employee in question, alternatively, the employer may consult the upper level of Human Resource management or any other supervisory organ of the institution for an impartial and objective opinion (Morris, 2010, p. 1).
For instance, if an employee is involved in such vices as negligence, sleeps during working hours, bullies and harasses co-workers including sexual harassment etcetera.
Possible types of discipline that may be instituted by the employer
In as much as the employer reserves the right to discipline its employee, the general code of ethics dictates that every disciplinary measure must be given in private, consistent, progressive and immediate.
An employer may, on the grounds of misconduct inconsistent with the fulfillment of the expressed or implied conditions of his service, after due inquiry; dismiss the employee without notice, downgrade the employee or impose any other lesser punishment as he deems just and fit and in the event that a punishment of suspension without wages is imposed, it should not exceed a period of two weeks (Aminuddin, 2009, p. 1).
For investigation purposes, the employer may suspend the employee from work for a period not exceeding two weeks but shall pay him not less than half his wages for such period, with the condition that if the investigation does not disclose any misconduct on the part of the employee the employer should forthwith restore to the employee the full amount of wages so withheld.
For minor offences, other disciplinary avenues may be explored by the employer which include; oral warning followed by counseling, warning formally in writing which should not exceed three occasions. The warning letters should describe clearly and specifically the employee misconduct.
Only on those serious crimes and employee misconducts does an employer reserve the right of outright dismissal of its uncouth employee.
Reference List
Morris, M. etal. (2010). Documentation, Discipline, and Discharge. Web.
Aminuddin, M. (2009). Industrial Discipline. Web.