Discipline - Suspensions

cctsphr · May 2004

When we exercise progressive discipline and the employee receives a suspension, I have always beleived (and practiced) that the suspension should not be at the company's convenience - if it is serious enough to have reached the suspension level, then the suspension should be immediate and consecutive. Recently, a department suspended an individual on 5/11 and 5/20. I just found out and called the department. The department was put out and disagreed. We have union and nonunion employees and strive to maintain consistency. This is a nonunion department. Am I off base on this?

Whatever · May 2004

I agree with you. At this point, you should be concerned that a new precedence has been set and discuss it with higher ups.

Balloonman · May 2004

I guess I must dissagree. When I suspend people for attendence (I know, oxymoron) I specifically make it midweek, so as to not reward the employee with a long weekend, and consult with the job site as to which days work best for them. I also tell all new employees this up front.

Now, if it is for a significant rule violation, yes, I suspend then and there as a rule of thumb. Either way the suspension gets served, I do not see as much of an issue with doing what best serves the company, but agree you should nto wait with a serious infraction.
My $0.02 worth!
DJ The Balloonman

deniseE · May 2004

we had a similar situation posted on the boards not too long ago...a manager was suspended that worked split shifts...and the deptartment wanted to divide the suspension to cause the least amount of inconvenience to the department.

I think the bottom line is that a suspension should not be convenient for the ee...i agree with the "not a long weekend" practice as well.

Don D · May 2004

My opinion is that too many of us take 'consistency' and 'precedence' waaaay too seriously. I certainly insist on personally trying to be consistent in most HR practices and recommendations. However, we tend to get too bent out of shape sometimes thinking that we cannot simply use the 'sound business decision' principle and move on. I can't imagine a successful discrimination charge resulting from two different decisions to suspend. Base it on sound business decision and practice and move on. Consistency in discipline does not necessarily mean that all employee suspensions must identically mirror each other. The consistency test is met when like discipline is in fact applied for like offenses, in a like manner and totally without regard to demographics. That doesn't mean I shouldn't suspend Tom the first three days of the week and Mary the middle three. If it meets business needs, I might put off Tom's suspension for another week.

psrcello · May 2004

Well, how about this one - we had a highly-paid Electrical Mechanical Technician Apprentice who earned himself a disciplinary suspension. However, we were short-staffed in the maintenance department at the time, so the department manager gave him an "in-place suspension" - three days of normal work with pay, but technically suspended as far as his corrective action records are concerned.

I'd never bumped into the likes of this before!

Kent · May 2004

I've used in-house suspension previously. I did it to make the point that whatever occurred was worthy of that level of discipline and documented as such. However, I didn't wish to further penalize the company by having this individual miss work. Typically it was for attendance issues. Suspnding someone for poor attendance just created additional burden on the employees that had to fill in for him/her.

Hatchetman · May 2004

Let me make sure you suspended an emplyee for two days but not consecutively, in a union environment?

I realize that there is nothing that formally says you may not suspend an employee like that but I suspect, unless your cba specificaly permits it or your union agrees to the practice, that an aribtrator would have some "heartburn" on that.

In any case the timing of a short suspension is always a problem.

For example, do you give a three day suspension in the middle of the week, forcing the emplyee ot come in on Monday and Friday (if the emplyee is 5/40). If you put a suspension at the start or end of the workdays (Monday or Friday), the emplyee may just consider it to be a nice, long weekend.

It depends on how you want the suspension to impact the employee viscerally and what your needs are at the particular time?

Don D · May 2004

In my opinion and experience, the company negotiator who let the administrative details of suspension get into a union contract would be guilty of poor work, at minimum. Such details as what the company may or may not do as forms of discipline should never reach the bargaining table, but if they do, should be quickly dispensed with. The Management Rights Clause is the single most important article of the CBA and casts a wide safety net over such things as the company's right to form and administer its policies.

Again, just my opinion.

Discipline - Suspensions

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