Question

You will respond to two case scenarios in this module. Both are drawn from real situations I've been involved in through some capacity though some details have been changed to preserve privacy for the parties involved.

These are both related to discipline and termination. In each case you are a leader with ultimate authority to decide if you terminate or not, as well as how to handle all details related to the termination. You should answer:

1. Do you terminate this person? Why or Why not?

2. If you don't terminate, what alternative would you do and why? What are the possible draw backs to this option?

3. If you do terminate, what are the possible risks? Do you offer any kind of severance package and if so, how much? To help with this consideration assume each employee makes $50,000 a year.

You may want to review the lecture on termination before writing your reply but you don't have to - if you opt to reply before reviewing the lecture I'd like to see you include some commentary in your feedback to peers that reflects an understanding of concepts from that lesson. Also remember, with regard to the concept of a severance package that you may be fully justified in your termination decision but even if that is the case, there are very real time and cost considerations to defending your position against any future appeals or litigation the employee may pursue.

Scenario 1:

Jane works in a position where being on time is extremely important; being even a minute late has a significant impact on her colleagues and with repeated incidents costs your company a good deal of money over time through overtime and other ripple effects.

She has been employed for about three years. She did fine the first year and is no longer a probationary employee. In her second year she started having issues with being late; she'd often come in 2 or 3 minutes late but sometimes up to 5 minutes late. Her supervisor coached her on this and while she agreed to do better, did not seem to see the big deal about being late because "it's only a few minutes", despite her supervisor explaining how it impacts others.

The tardiness improved briefly after the first coaching but did not take long to regress to the point where Jane had 5 more tardies in a two month span. This led to her being suspended for one day without pay. She was irate about the suspension but agreed to do better. She did do better for a few more months but eventually started to regress again. She was coached again when the supervisor saw this happening and she corrected for a few weeks but then was 4 minutes late again for one shift. She was suspended for 3 days this time. At each stage her attitude continues to be poor about the issue of being on time but she gives cursory promises to do better. She has opined that she is being picked on for this issue, that it isn't a big deal she is late now and then, and has a few peers who encourage her to feel victimized by management for being "harassed" over such a trivial matter.

Her performance aside from the tardiness is mediocre; there isn't anything you can take corrective action about per se and certainly nothing to discipline over but she really does the bare minimum and her peers view her as little more than a "warm body" with regard to her value to the team.

After the 3 day sanction she did well for four months but regressed again to the point of being late twice in a one week span. Her supervisor coached her again about this, got the same tepid promise, and she was five minutes late a week following the coaching session.

Using the questions at the top of this module as a guide, what do you do now?

Scenario 2

Bill is an employee who has been with you for 7 years. He has many strengths and has been able to provide some real added value to your unit and agency at times. He's also had some emotional and health problems at times that have impacted availability to work and you suspect, at times, has impacted performance. That said, Bill has never identified a specific medical condition that requires workplace accommodations and overall Bill has been pretty vague about his health situation.

With regard to work, Bill has had significant problems with organization and has a reputation with his peers for not being reliable. At times it has impacted his clients as well which has led to some coaching situations. He typically responds with some defensiveness when coached but after a day or two will come back and identify where the feedback has value and with some specific changes he'll make to remedy it. The changes do seem to work to a modest degree but are rarely long lasting and really only scratch the surface of the overall issues with organization and reliability.

One day you get a report from some informal channels that Bill was cited for driving with a suspended license. His job requires him to be insured through the agency policy and does involve some driving on occasion, though it isn't a main feature of his position. You are concerned so you check into it further and find that Bill has not had a valid license for over three months. This was no reported to you nor his supervisor at any point and he drove to work during that span. He never drove an agency vehicle with a suspended license but drove during the course of work hours and for work purposes.

Further compounding factors, it turns out that Bill was ticketed for driving while suspended at a time in day where he reported being on duty, working. He was not in the midst of doing any work related activity while driving, per his own report he was returning from a personal errand. You investigate this issue further and discover through a combination of his own report and time stamps on your surveillance cameras that there were at least 40 hours in the last two weeks he reported being at work but in fact was not working. He did not have any excuse other than struggling with organization and acknowledging he needs to do better.

Though your video feed does not go back farther than two weeks colleagues familiar with Bill offer their opinion that he has likely been fabricating hours on his time sheet for some time. There are no punch clocks in your workplace - employees are expected to be professional and honest about their time worked.

With regard to not having a license to drive, Bill states it is related to a medical condition and that he has been appealing it through the DOT. He says he didn't know it was suspended because he appealed the decision but documentation he provided did have clear statements that he was not to drive while the DOT considered the appeal. The documentation did confirm the basis for the suspension was a medical situation that rendered driving potentially dangerous. Your insurance company says that any employee with a suspended license cannot be insured for three years subsequent to that happening.

Based on these alarming facts, considering this employee has NEVER been disciplined, and replying to the questions posed at the start of this module, what do you do now?

Answer 1

Scenario 1

1. I do not terminate Jane. The reason for doing so is that she had been working for a long time. She should be given a strict warning this time and told that if she fails to be at this time, she will be terminated.
2. The best possible alternative is to give Jane one last and final warning. The drawback of this will be that the funds of the organization will be wasted and the company will again suffer because of Jane.
3. Jane will not be terminated, but if she is then the severance package will not matter because it can be covered with the behavior of a good employee.

Scenario 2

1. Bill should be given the notice period and terminated from his job. The reason for this is that he is not only hampering the work environment but also proving to be a bad example to the organization.
2. The only drawback for terminating Bill will be to lose an old employee who had been working for 7 years.
3. The risk would be to not find anyone as good as Bill immediately. Bill can be given one month notice period and asked to resign. No severance package will be given to him.

If this helped you please give a thumps up!!!!