Punishment

Punishment is the imposition of a disciplinary action with the goal of reducing or stopping employees
undesirable behavior.

The purpose of punishment is to prevent future occurrences of an unacceptable or undesirable

behavior and to encourage and enforce "proper" behavior as defined by an organization or society
through the use of disciplinary actions.

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.

Guidelines of a disciplinary action:

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.

Written warning: If the behavior

continues or if the employee
further commits a serious
offense, then it requires written
warning. It involves the
documentation between
employees and supervisor and
more official and it summarizes
the previous oral attempts. This
written feedback is discussed
with the employee and then
placed in his personnel file.

Suspension: After written

warnings, if the conduct of the
employee is still not along desired lines, serious punitive steps
could be initiated. The third step is suspension without pay; its
purpose is to emphasize the seriousness of the offense and
necessity of change.

Termination: In case of major violations, the final step is

dismissal of employee and is used only when previous steps
have failed to change unacceptable behavior.

Progressive Discipline Approach has two advantages for

managers:
It gives the employee additional opportunities to correct
his performance before discharge.
It stresses the seriousness of repeated violations to employees.
Progressive Discipline Approach has the following disadvantages:
Progressive discipline may result into bitter relationships between supervisor and employee
Supervisor may feel obligated to address every performance offence and assign an
appropriate punishment to it, even though it may not be required.
Management may focus only on the problem created by employees at the expense of the
good performers, thereby consuming too much of a managers time.
Disciplinary action should follow the Hot Stove rule: According to the Douglas McGregors Red
Hot Stove rule, disciplinary action should have the following consequences:
(a) Burns immediately:
Discipline should be immediate, in other words, when an employee violates a rule, procedure or
standard, discipline should be undertaken as quickly as possible so the individual will understand the
reason for it just like the pain felt when you touch a hot stove.
With the passage of time, people have the tendency to convince themselves that they are not at
fault.
(b) Provides warning:
It is very important to provide advance warning that punishment will follow unacceptable behavior. As
you move closer to hot stove, you are warned by its heat that you will be burned if you touch it.
(c) Gives consistent punishment:
Disciplinary action should also be consistent in that everyone who performs the same act will be
punished accordingly. As with a hot stove, each person who touches it is burned the same.
(d) Burns impersonally:
Disciplinary action should be impersonal. The company's disciplinary actions should be applied, or not
applied, based upon conduct, not based upon who is engaged in the conduct. There are no favorites
when this approach is followed. Just like a hot stove doesn't care who touches it, it will burn princes
and paupers alike.

Four Strategy of Employee Separation

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.

Disciplinary Procedure/ Procedure of dismiss:

Framing a charge and issuing a letter:

- When an employee commits an act of misconduct that requires disciplinary action, the
employee concerned should be issued a charge sheet.
- Charges of misconduct or indiscipline should be clearly and precisely stated in the
charge sheet.
- The charge sheet should also ask for an explanation for the said delinquent act and
the employee should be given sufficient time for answering this.
Consideration of explanation
- On getting the answer for the letter of charge served, the explanation furnished should
be considered and
- If the accused employee confess the charge labeled against him, the management can
dispense any further enquiry and award punishment to the accused employee.
- But if it is satisfactory, no disciplinary action need be taken.
- On the other hand when the management is not satisfied with the employee's
explanation there is a need for enquiry if manager believes that there is sufficient
evidence of employee's misconduct.
Forming domestic enquiry committee: Committee members should be senior, honest and
unbiased.
Issuing show-case notice
- Show-cause notice is issued by the manager.
- However, this gives the employee another chance to account for his misconduct and
rebut the charges made against him.
- Enquiry should also be started by serving him a notice of enquiry, indicating clearly the
names of the enquiring officer and committee members, time, date and place of
enquiry, etc.
Conducting enquiry:
- This must be in accordance with the principle of natural justice, that is, the employee
concerned must be given an opportunity, of being heard.
- When the process of enquiry is over and the findings of the same are recorded, the
Enquiry Officer should suggest the nature of disciplinary action to be taken.
Passing the final order of punishment
- Disciplinary action is to be taken when the misconduct of the employee is proved.
- While deciding the nature of disciplinary action, the employee's previous record,
precedents, effects of disciplinary action on other employees, etc., have to be
considered.
- When the employee feels that the enquiry conducted was not proper and the action
taken is unjustified, he must be given a chance to make an appeal.
Follow up: After taking the disciplinary action, a proper follow up action has to be taken
and the consequences of the implementation of disciplinary action should be noted and
taken care of.

Factors to be considered in Taking Disciplinary Action

Seriousness of the problem-How sever is the problem? Dishonesty is usually
considered as a more serious violation than reporting to work 20 minutes late.
Duration of the problem- A first occurrence is usually viewed differently than a third
or fourth offense.
Frequency and nature of the problem
Continual violation may require a different type of discipline from that applied to
isolated instances of misconduct. But also the pattern of the problem should be
considered. Continual violation may point out a situation that demands far more
sever discipline in order to prevent a minor problem from becoming a major one.

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.

Kumkum Sultana (26th Batch, DM, CU)