Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Punishment is the imposition of a disciplinary action with the goal of reducing or stopping employees
undesirable behavior.
In punishment, the rate of the target behavior is decreased by imposing a negative consequence (i.e.,
"positive punishment") or by removing a pleasant or desired stimulus (i.e., "negative punishment")
immediately or shortly after each occurrence of the behavior.
Disciplinary actions: Penalties and Punishment: An employee found guilty of misconduct may be
liable for any of the following penalties:
A. Minor punishment
1. Censure or warning:
Oral warning: The mildest form of discipline is the oral warning. This is usually awarded on
minor offences like late coming, absenteeism etc. which are committed for the first time. Oral
warning is temporarily recorded in the employees file. Once the employee has shown better
performance and willingness to obey rules and regulations, the record of the oral warning is
removed from his files.
Written warning: This is awarded for repeated minor offense or some major lapses. it is the
first formal stage of the disciplinary procedure. This is because the written warning becomes
part of the employees official personnel file as this is a not only giving the warning to the
employee but sending a copy to HRM to be inserted in the employees permanent record.
2. Withholding of increments/ promotion including stoppage of efficiency bar.
3. Recovery from pay of the whole or part of any pecuniary loss caused to the federation by
negligence or breach of orders or rules or instruction on the part of the employee.
4. Fine.
B. Major punishment
5. Suspension:
- Suspension, also called layoff, as punishment is awarded for for some major/serious offense.
- A suspension may be for one day or several weeks; disciplinary layoffs in excess of a month are
rare.
- During suspension, the employee is paid a reduced pay, known as subsistence allowance.
- Some organizations skip this step completely because it can have negative consequences for
both the company and the employee. From the organizations perspective, a suspension means
the loss of the employee for the layoff period. If the person has unique skills or is a vital part of a
complex process, her loss during the suspension period can severely impact her department or
the organization performance if a suitable replacement cannot be located. From the employees
standpoint, a suspension can result in the employee returning in a more unpleasant and negative
frame of mind than before the layoff.
6. Demotion: Demotion means reduction to lower service grade or post. For the serious offense
where suspension has not been effective and management wants to avoid dismissal, demotion is
considered as an alternative punishment. It is not temporary but a constant one, and has serious
implications for employee morale and motivation.
7. Pay cut: Another alternative, but rarely applied in practice, is cutting the problem employees pay.
This is awarded mostly when offense led to damage or loss of property. A part of the loss is
recovered from such a pay cut the employee.
8. Dismissal from service: Managements ultimate disciplinary punishment is dismissing the
problem employee. Dismissal should be used only for the most serious offenses.
A dismissal decision should be given after long and hard consideration. For almost all individuals,
being fired from a fob is an emotional trauma. For employees who have been with the
organization for many years dismissal can make it difficult to obtain new employment or may
require the individual to undergo extensive retraining. In addition, management should consider
the possibility that a dismissed employee will take legal action to fight the decision.
1. Disciplinary action should be corrective rather than punitive: The objective of disciplinary
action is not to deal out punishment but to correct an employees undesirable behavior.
Therefore disciplinary action must not be thought of a punitive action.
2. Disciplinary action should be progressive: The concept of progressive discipline states
that penalties must be appropriate to the violation. It is a step by step program designed to
correct performance problems arising out of employee misconduct. This approach typically
follows four progressive steps to rectify offenses committed by an employee.
Oral warning: If inappropriate behavior is minor in nature and has not previously occurred, an oral
warning may be sufficient. It is a verbal interaction between the employees and supervisor where they
discuss the problem behavior and the expectations to change the behaviors. An oral warning is
issued as an informal act that is simply noted in the record.
1. Retrenchment Strategy:
- Retrenchment is the process of a company or organization to reduce the number of people in its
employment in order to match or meet operational requirements.
- It is an involuntary separation of an employee is adopted when an organization aims at reducing
its one or more business operations with the view to cut expenses and reach to a more stable
financial position.
- A retrenched worker should be given one months notice or pay in lieu of notice, compensation at
the rate of 15 days average pay for every completed year of continuous service.
- The employer, moreover must have good and sufficient reasons for reducing the no of his
employees such as
Overstaffing
Shortage of raw materials
Increased labor costs
the replacement of labor by machines or
the close of the department (e.g. natural disaster destroy the factory)
Merger or liquidation
2. Discharge strategy:
Discharge is the termination of the services of an employee but it is not done for the punishment
purpose. It is mainly on medical grounds like
Lack of physical fitness
Not mentally sound
Any such diseases that take time more than 2 month for recovery.
3. Termination
- Termination by Employer
Termination by employer may occur for employees misconduct, indiscipline, on the ground of
continued ill-health, expiry of contract where post remain.
- Termination by Employee
Termination by employee may be temporary or permanent.
Employee may terminate his job by either resignation or voluntary retirement.
In case of temporary termination company should be informed before 14days and in case of
permanent termination company should be informed before 1month.
In both cases, company will cut off employees salary (e.g. 3 month or 4months salary)
4. Dismissal Strategy: A serious offense/ misconduct and repeated disciplinary problems will
require dismissal.
There are six types of misconduct that require dismissal.
In-subordination
Taking or giving bribe
Habitual late comer and leaving work early
Falsifying official documents
Tampering official documents
Patronize goes slow and goes for illegal steps.
Dismissal is a permanent separation of a worker from work and dismissed employee
will not gel any benefit from employer not even his deposited money in provident fund.
Employees work history: E.g. How long, quality of the service, does he have a
strong track record, period of service in the organization.
Extenuating factors: E.g. A person who gets late to report to work on a particular
day due to his child being ill should be dealt with mercifully than a person who is
late due to over sleeping
Degree of socialization: E.g. Does the employee know the rules and regulations, is
he comparatively a new employee who has had not the time to familiarize with the
rules and regulations, has the management made an effort, create awareness etc.
History of the organizations discipline practice E.g. Equity demands consistency
against some relevant bench mark.
Implication of other employees: While taking a certain action against the employee it
should consider that whether it has a dysfunctional effect on others in the Unit or
not.
Management backing E.g. If the employees decide to take case to a high level in
management will managers has reasonable evidence to justify their decision.
It is important that organization has the data to back up the necessity and equity
of the action taken. No disciplinary action carries much weight if violators believe
that they can challenge and successfully override their managers decision.