Discipline, Warning, Dismissal

Before disciplinary action

Our standards of behaviour and performance are important to our success and reputation. They are defined by our principles, our Code of Conduct and in our policies. Your leadership responsibilities include ensuring your team understands our standards. You can do this by regularly setting expectations for behaviour and performance with your team. Where necessary you are expected to address issues of behaviour or performance that falls short of these standards and get performance back on-track including giving feedback and coaching.

When to begin a disciplinary process

Although it’s usually a last resort, don’t hesitate to begin a disciplinary process when other efforts to get performance/behaviour back on track have failed or where there are allegations of misconduct or serious misconduct. To understand our disciplinary process and play your part, you need to have some understanding of the legal considerations involved. These include the need for us to follow a fair disciplinary process and have good cause for any action we take. Employees have a legal right to challenge disciplinary action by raising a personal grievance. Some types of problems have unique features which require special handling. They include absenteeism or dealing with suspected criminal activity and dealing with people who arrive potentially unfit for work. Make sure you involve your manager and HR before beginning a disciplinary process.

Your responsibility

Your responsibility is to:

Regularly set expectations of behaviour and performance with your team
Reinforce good performance/behaviour
Challenge unacceptable performance/behaviour early and use our tools for getting performance back on track
Address persistent unsatisfactory performance, misconduct or serious misconduct promptly in accordance with our disciplinary process
Involve your manager and HR before beginning a disciplinary process

What constitutes misconduct, serious misconduct and unacceptable performance?

Types of behaviour or performance issues which may justify disciplinary action include:

Serious misconduct: means misconduct so serious as to justify dismissal without notice and without warning. This is often referred to as summary or instant dismissal. See our Code of Conduct for a full list but examples include; falsification of company documents, unauthorised possession of company property, dishonesty, major health and safety breach etc.
Misconduct: includes less serious offences in breach of our Code of Conduct policies, or standards. Examples include; lateness, not taking reasonable care, low-level harassment, unprofessional behaviour etc
Unacceptable performance: includes not working to high standards of professionalism, not delivering on performance objectives, not adhering to standard processes not delivering appropriate quality of work etc

Our disciplinary process

Our disciplinary process is set out in a flowchart. Each step is explained in detail with links to the documents and tools you need.

FLOW CHART