Should an employee who has misbehaved be dismissed immediately?

Not every one of your employees will behave as expected. What will you do in the event an employee breaks the rule or commits a serious misconduct?

Even when you exercise due care in recruiting a person, there is no assurance that everyone has a clean slate. There will always be a black sheep.

Some organizations categorise misconducts into minor misconducts and major misconducts. But even a non-serious (minor) misconduct may amount to serious misconduct due to its frequency. For example, if an employee is late for work once, that may be a non-serious or minor misconduct depending on the circumstances, such as in the case of a non-hazardous installation.

If that employee continues to be late reporting for work, this will amount to serious misconduct that warrant disciplinary action that may lead to dismissal.

Disciplinary Rules and Regulations
Organizations need to have disciplinary policies and procedures, rules and regulations governing employees behaviour at the workplace.

These need to spell out the types of serious misconduct that warrant dismissal. However, listing misconducts poses problems since not every misconduct can be listed. It is impractical.

The employee handbook may provide procedure in dealing with employees who commit a minor misconduct for the first time. This usually takes the form of counselling whereby the employee is informed about his behaviour and told not to repeat it. The organization needs to have this done immediately. If not, this can amount to condoning the misconduct.

If the employee fails to change the way he behaves, then disciplinary action with a view to dismissal is initiated.

Serious or gross misconducts are always dealt with a view to dismissal.

In every case of disciplinary action, a show cause letter is issued first. This gives the employee to provide reason or reasons why he has acted so.

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