Disciplinary Procedures: Correcting Employee Behaviors in Organizations

Disciplinary procedures are measures put in place by organisations to correct the behaviours of their employees. The disciplinary measures are put in place as the response mechanisms, by business organizations, to misconduct or wrongdoing by employees (Workplace Info, 2015). There are various forms of disciplinary measures used by business organizations, and the most common forms include written and oral warning to employees. For instance, a manager of an organisation may warn his employees against violating the terms of engagement. Alternatively, a letter may be written to the employee warning him or her against violating the terms of engagement. In other cases, the employer may take legal action against the employee by suing him or her. This way, the court of law is left to discipline the employee as it deems fit.

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Disciplinary measures can also include expulsion or suspension of an employee from the organization (The Law Handbook, 2018). In this dimension, disciplinary measures are any form of punishment than a law perpetrator may be subjected. For instance, expulsions and suspensions involve temporarily sending away an employee from the organisation. The essence of this is to initiate and maintain high levels of discipline among employees.

What are Employment Contracts?

Employment contracts are the agreements setting out the terms and conditions under which employees and employers engage one another, and carry out their businesses (Fair Work Ombudsman, 2015). It can be written or verbal. Terms and conditions are the particulars under which the contracts work. Thus, they spell the roles and responsibilities of the parties in agreement as well as the consequences that each party would face upon violating any of the frameworks of agreement. In this dimension, the employers and the employees must first agree on the frameworks governing their association at work. in most cases, the agreement is sealed when the two parties append their signatures on the written terms of service. Following the formalisation of the terms of service, the parties engaged must abide by the agreed frameworks of engagement. To this end, the employer defines the job requirements of the employees. Likewise, there is a provision for the compensation for the services rendered by employees. For instance, employers must adhere to the pay agreements whether an employee works full time or part-time (Fair Work Ombudsman, 2015). Ideally, the terms outline what is expected of employers as well as employees. For example, employees are expected to fulfil their job descriptions. Likewise, employers are expected to define a working environment enabling employees to fulfil their duties and compensate them. On the other hand, conditions are a set of frameworks that oversee successful employee-employer collaboration under the set terms. Thus, conditions outline particular consequences that either employers or employees would face upon violating particular terms of engagement (Employment Law Handbook, 2018). The essence of employment contracts, under the governorship of the terms and conditions, is establishing standard approaches to work-related activities, and this means that without terms of engagement, any work-related crisis can be a nightmare to solve.

Unfair Dismissal, Employee Suspension Rights, Voluntary Termination, and Genuine Redundancy

Unfair dismissal practices pertain to terminating contracts for inadmissible reasons, non-genuine redundancy and unjust reasons. For instance, striking off the name of an individual from the list, and yet he or she has fully settled the individual renewal fee, $336.00, for GST (SMF, 2015). This implies that the dismissal does not follow the legal and proper channels of employee dismission. In this manner, the employee feels that he or she should not be terminated.

Employee suspension rights are the legal frameworks governing the temporary cessation of the employees during the period with which they do not attend work but remain employees of the organization (Workplace Info, 2015). The suspension rights define what happens to the employee while serving the suspension period. For instance, it may require the employee not to be seen within the vicinity of the organization. Thus, it provides measures through which the employer will respond if the employee violates the rule. Alternatively, suspension rights also protect the employee from exploitation by the employer. This is because an employee may be on suspension, and yet the employer demands that he or she works lest salary is not disbursed.

Voluntary termination is the act of employees resigning from an organization at their will or choice. It could be a personal choice or an influence by the organization itself. It is a method of downsizing the workforce as well as restructuring the workforce (Workplace Info, 2015). For example, if an organisation feels that most of its employees are too old or inexperienced in performing according to its required standards, it may influence the resignation of such employees by advising them to leave the organisation. However, there are cases where employees decide to leave their respective organisation at will.

Genuine redundancy occurs when an employee's job no longer requires action or to be completed as stipulated in terms of service and job description (Fair Work Ombudsman, 2015). In this manner, the employee cannot claim in response to unfair dismissal. This is because the employee may deliberate organizational structural changes that eliminate the necessity of the individual's services or rather, workforce. Alternatively, the employer may have complied with an obligation of an agreement rendering the job requirement non-existent. Thus, the employee in question will have to leave without appealing to retain his or job position.

Determination of Unfair Dismissals and Industrial Relations Legislation

Unfair dismissal relates to inappropriate termination of employees. This implies that the employer does not follow the proper channel of employee termination. The determination of unfair dismissals depends on the legislation enacted to govern employee termination. Thus, any violation of the clauses warrants the termination of the unfair status. For instance, a termination is evaluated against the common law to reveal whether or not the employer observed the terms pertaining compensations of terminated employees as well as the laws governing fixed period contracts (Employment Law Handbook, (2017). In this manner, unfair dismissal can be determined by looking at the period of termination. If the employee is dismissed before the fixed period elapses. Again, the common law does not permit the employer to stand down an employee without compensations. Thus, checking whether or not the terminated employee is compensated is instrumental in determining the unfairness of the termination.

Project 1

The processes of employee termination are subject to particular policies and procedures that ensure fair and ethical termination of employees. I have a proposal for the implementation of such policies in my organization to the senior management of the organization. I propose the following for successful implementation of employee termination. I propose involuntary and voluntary employee termination, depending on the circumstance. For instance, if the organization has foreseen an event that would see most or some of its employees losing their jobs, it is necessary to inform them about such events. It is the process that a voluntary termination will come in. However, if there are cases where the employee must be terminated by the organizations, due to issues like in disciplinary cases and unethical behaviour, a successful and fair termination should be facilitated. This ensures that the organizations successfully clear the employee to leave without complaints from either side. Whether voluntary or involuntary, I advise that the organization apply and adhere to all the laws of employee termination as outlined by the state of Western Australia, and this is to ensure successful and fair termination of employees. In this dimension, I root for the maintenance of confidentiality of the employee's information. To achieve this, I propose the safe-keeping of the copies of employee information. The act of preventing their reach and access by unauthorized individuals, as fellow employees, is an effective strategy in achieving confidentiality. To this end, the HR team will be taking the lead in the practices of ethical practices by practicing and maintaining confidentiality and privacy of employee information (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2008).

The implementation of these measures is triggered by the need to establish successful and fair termination of employees in accordance to the laws governing employee termination; whether national or regional (Australasian Legal Information Institute,2011). For instance, the laws stipulated in Western Australia demands the HR practitioners prove the validity of employee termination, and this demands that justifiable facts are warranting the termination back the process. In this manner, the HR professionals of my organization must prepare documentation of evidence or rather supporting employee termination. For instance, if the employee is being terminated for poor performance, a documentation of his or her dwindling performance and lack of improvement, over a given timeframe, is inevitable. This means that no termination will be undertaken if HR practitioners do not meet this term.

As part of exercising ethical practices, I advocate for redeployment and redundancy plans, and again, this depends on the conditions prevailing. If there is a looming plan to restructure the workforce of the organization, it is an ethical move to advise employees to consider voluntary redundancy. This enables them to leave the organization and successfully join other organisations. However, supplementing this with a redeployment plan is ideal. It is ideal for helping to leave employees secure jobs in other organisations, and this is because getting jobs, especially without referrals, in some organisations could be an uphill task (Workplace Info, 2015). To this end, the leaving employee would have faith in the organisation and would wish to return someday. However, it is this part that high levels of confidentiality and privacy are necessary. The rationale for this is because it is part of ethical conduct regarding employee termination. In some cases, employers receiving redeployed employees would seek access to such information. However, such information should not be disclosed to anyone, whatsoever.

The implementation of policies and procedures pertinent to employee termination is quite a complex activity. Thus, whoever is mandated with the responsibility of overseeing the process must be well-equipped with particular skills and knowledge that will help him or her facilitate a successful process. The lack of skilled HR personnel who are competent is one of the significant challenges that organisations face, and especially upcoming business organisations (Oakes, 2012). For instance, the HR personnel in charge of the termination activities must be knowledgeable about the processes and procedures like conducting exit interviews, determination of grounds for employee termination as well as managing the whole process. In cases where unskilled and unknowledgeable individuals are left to conduct employee termination, they facilitate poor termination processes characterized by improper or no exit interviews, mishandled employee information as well as a sham termination. They can even facilitate improper compensation of existing employees. To this end, I propose thorough training of the HR personnel tasked with employee...