Disciplinary Hearings
Handling Employment Disputes
What is a Disciplinary Hearing?
Sometimes staff do something they know they’re not supposed to do, or they fail or refuse to do something they’re paid to do.
This is when you need to take action to ensure their behaviour changes, and to show their colleagues you take such matters seriously. The only way to do that is to hold a disciplinary hearing.
The purpose of the hearing is to discuss the matter with the individual and to give them the opportunity to explain their actions before you decide an appropriate sanction.
Our role in conducting a disciplinary hearing
All we need is a private room to hold the meeting, somewhere no-one can overhear the conversation for the benefit of the employee.
They are free, if they wish, to bring a colleague or trade union representative to accompany and support them.
We will audio-record the meeting so you know what was said and discussed and what responses the employee made to the allegations. This ensures each party can be certain what responses were made to the allegations in the event of an appeal to the outcome.
Following the meeting, we will make any further enquiries before providing you with a report in which we outline the events leading to the meeting, the responses to the allegations, and a recommended outcome to the matter for your consideration.
Because they are the employer, only you can implement a sanction.
HR-Onsite also specialises in holding:
Need to hold a disciplinary hearing?
- Use open questions to ensure you understand the circumstances and closed questions to confirm what the employee has said to you.
- Do not become embroiled in an argument and do not make any disparaging remarks or physical gestures that could be mis-interpreted.
- Question the reason for them acting in the manner alleged, or failing to act in an appropriate manner.
- Allow the employee the opportunity to respond to the allegations and allow them to ask any questions, present their evidence, and call any witnesses.
- Don’t attempt to offer any decision or outcome during the meeting as you could be accused of not listening to what the employee has said or that the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
- Better still, ask us to hold the meeting for you!
