Discipline Most employment want to conduct themselves in a manner acceptable to the company and to

their fellow employees. Occasionally, problems of absenteeism, poor work performance, or rule violations arise. When informal conversations or coaching sessions fail to resolve these problems formal discipline action is called for Employee discipline is the final area of contract administration that we will consider. Typical, the management rights clause of the collective bargaining agreement retains for management the authority to impose reasonable rules for workplace conduct and to discipline employees for just cause. As developed in thousands of arbitration cases over the past 60 years, the concept of just cause requires an employer not only to produce persuasive evidence of an employees liability or negligence, but also to provide the employee a fair hearing and to impose a penalty appropriate to the proven offense. Unions rarely object to employee discipline, provided that (1) it is applied consistently, (2) the rules are publicized clearly, and (3) the rules are considered reasonable. Discipline is indispensable to management control. Ideally, it should serve as a corrective mechanism to create and maintain a productive, responsive workforce. Unfortunately, some managers go to great lengths to avoid using discipline. To some extent this is understandable, for discipline is one of the hardest HR actions to face. Managers may avoid imposing discipline because of (1) ignorance of organizational rules, (2) feat of formal grievances, (3) fear of losing the friendship of employees. Yet failure to administer discipline can result in implied acceptance or approval of the offense. Thereafter, problems may become more frequent or severe and discipline becomes that much more difficult to administer. As an alternative, some companies are experimenting with a technique called positive discipline. On its face, it sounds a lot like traditional discipline dressed up o=in euphemisms. It works as follows: Employees who commit offenses first get an oral remainder rather than a reprimand. Them comes a written reminder,. followed by a paid day off called a decisionmaking leave day (a suspension, in traditional parlance). After a pensive day off, the employee must agree in writing (or orally at some union shops) that he or she will behave responsible for the next year. The paid day is a one-shot chance at reform. The process is documented and if the employee does not change, termination follows.

How has positive discipline worked?. At Tampa Electric, which has used it for over 10 years, more employees have improved their job performance than have left the company. Says one power station manager: Before, we punished employees and treated them worse and worse and expected them to act better. I dont ever recall suspending some who came back ready to change. These arguments for not imposing punishment are persuasive. But evidence also indi So called retaliatory discharge cases, where a work is fired for actions ranging from filing a workers compensation claim to reporting safety violations to government agencies. The Supreme Court has ruled that where state law permits (as it does in 34 states) union as well as nonunion employees have the right to sue over their dismissals, even if they are covered by a collective bargaining contract that provides a grievance procedure and remedies. For some employees, however, relief is in sight. Since 1988, the California Supreme Court has disallowed thousands of lawsuits by employees seeking punitive damaged for wrongful discharge. On the other hand, courts in many states notably Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New York expressly permit punitive damages in certain instances. To avoid potential charges of unjust dismissal, managers should scrutinize each facet of the HR management system. They should look for example at the following: Dissatisfaction: Anything that disturbs an employee, whether or not the unrest is expressed in words. Much dissatisfaction never turns into complaint, as something happens to make it unnecessary. Dissatisfaction evaporates with a nights sleep, after a cup of coffee with a colleague, or when the cause of the dissatisfaction is in some other way removed. The few dissatisfaction that do produce complaint are also most likely to resolve themselves at that stage. The person hearing the complaint explains things in a way that the dissatisfied employee had not previously appreciated or takes action top get at the root of the problem. Personnel managers have to encourage the proper use of procedures to discover sources of dissatisfaction. Managers in the middle may not reveal the complaints they are hearing, for fear of showing themselves in a poor light. Employees who feel insecure for any reason are not likely to risk going into procedure, yet the dissatisfaction lying beneath repressed grievance can

produce all manner of unsatisfactory work behaviors from apathy to arson. Individual dissatisfaction can lead to industrial action. Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939, pp225-69) differentiated three types of complaint, according to content. The first kind referred to tangible objects in terms that could be defined by any competent worker and could readily rested: The machine is out of order This tool is too dull The stock were getting now is not up to standard Our cement is too thin and wont make the rubber stick

Second were those complaint based partly on sensory experience, but primarily on the accompanying subjective reactions: The work is messy Its too hot in here The job is too hard

These statements include terms where the meaning is biologically or socially determined and can therefore not be understood unless the background of the complainant is knower seldom can their accuracy be objectively determined. A temperature of 18 degrees centigrade may be too hot for one person but equable for anther. The third type of complaint they differentiated were those involving the hopes and fears of employees: The supervision plays favorites The pay rates are too low Seniority doesnt count as much as it should

These complains proved the most revealing to the investigators as they showed the importance of determining not only what employees felt but also why they felt as they did not only verifying the facts (the manifest content) but also determining the feelings behind the fact (the latent content).

Roethlisberger and Dickson concluded for instance that one employee who complained of his supervisor being a bully was actually saying something rather different especially when the reason given the fact that the supervisor did not say good morning. Later it was revealed that the root of his dissatisfaction was his attitude to any authority figure not simply the supervisor about whom he had complained. Each of the type of dissatisfaction manifested in this analysis is important for the management to uncover and act upon if action is possible. Action is likely to be prompt on complaints of the first type as they are neutral blame is being placed on an inanimate object and individual culpability is not an issue. Action may be taken on complaints of the second type where the required action is straightforward such as opening a window if it is too hot but the problem of accuracy is such that there may be a tendency to smoothe over and issue or leave it to sort itself out in time. The third type of complaint is the most difficult and action is therefore less likely to be taken. Supervisors will often take complaints to be a personal criticism of their own competence and employees will often translate the complaint into a grievance only by attaching it to a third party like a shop steward so that the relationship between employee and supervisor is not jeopardized.