Employee discipline. None of us likes to administer it. Sometimes it’s necessary as part of a performance improvement process.

There are really only three questions that must be answered.

• Where in the process of employee discipline should a verbal warning occur?

• What is the purpose of giving a verbal warning?

• What is the procedure that should be followed when you give a verbal warning?

Place

In most cases, the process of employee discipline follows a series of steps. Except for the most egregious offenses, outright sacking is rare, or at least it ought to be. Organisations usually have the disciplinary process spelled out in some detail. That’s so that a) the person who is disciplined is treated fairly and b) the company or public sector establishment doesn’t find itself in front of a tribunal.

Formal verbal warnings are no longer available to UK employers as a disciplinary sanction because they are not recognized as part of the ACAS Code. You can, however, informally warn an employee about poor performance. If you choose this option, always confirm what you discussed in writing, so the employee knows: (1) what’s expected of them in the future; and (2) that formal disciplinary action will follow if there’s no improvement.

All corrective action should be kept as low key as possible for as long as you can. Neither you, nor the person whose performance that needs to be corrected, will benefit by escalating the disciplinary process beyond what is necessary. And even in circumstances where more drastic measures are warranted, irreparable harm could be done by implementing them.

Morale, for example, could plummet and productivity could also decline. To coin a phrase: You could win the battle, but lose the war. Therefore, wise judgements by competent management must prevail. When repeated casual comments are deemed to be ineffective, that’s when sometimes a one-to-one meeting to give an informal verbal reprimand may be required.

Purpose

What is the purpose of giving an informal verbal warning? Ostensibly, it’s to use the minimum “force” to get someone to change or to improve. If you keep that in mind, then it will prevent you from overreacting; and let’s face it: In the heat of the moment, that’s easy to do.

Procedure

This should be done privately. Never, ever, reprimand someone in front of anyone else. If you’re in a life-threatening situation, say what you need to in order to make the situation safer, but don’t give anyone a dressing down in front of others. It’s unprofessional and demonstrates that you lack good judgement. You’ll not only embarrass the “victim”, you’ll also isolate everyone else, whether they’re within earshot or not. Bad news travels fast.

In your private meeting, you need to make it clear to the employee that you are very concerned about certain things and want to build a positive action plan to improve performance and avoid going down a disciplinary route. Keep your comments short, be clear and precise about the “poor performance”, and always ask the individual concerned if he / she has anything to say. Always work towards an agreed improvement action plan. The aim is to refocus them, and their performance. It is not bully them or harass them. You can let them know if performance does not improve then the next step would be a formal disciplinary process while it is important that does not come across as a threat.

This is an informal attempt to correct poor performance. It is, however, the first step in what could be a more serious, formal discipline.

If you look for guidance on the Internet about how to give verbal warnings, then you’ll see some instructions that are rather involved.

On the one hand, you do need to be prepared. You don’t want to waffle. On the other hand, things may get blown a bit out of proportion if you spend a lot of time doing so.

The warning is intended to be brief and to the point. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to say, “You’ve done XYZ on these three occasions. Don’t do XYZ again”.

Ask for explanations, clarify any misunderstanding, co-design and improvement action plan or at least confirm the performance standards precisely and then send the person back to work. Save the lengthy preparation for the written warning, if it comes to that. In the meantime, keep it at the lowest level possible.

If there’s some specific behaviour that you do want to see, then as briefly as possible say what it is.

You could say something like, “I’ve called you into my office because your performance isn’t what it needs to be. Do you know what I’m talking about?” Then let the person respond. Then you agree or disagree. A couple of sentences at most.

Preface them by saying, “We’ve talked about this before and things haven’t improved yet”.  That statement in itself will get the attention of most people. They need to feel the seriousness of it, though it’s still low-key. Then, tell the person what you expect to change or improve, and give that person a time frame.

“This is a verbal warning. Your performance must improve to . . .” and then spell out the standard and the timeframe: 30 days, or 60 days, or whatever it is”. And then offer encouragement and an action plan, training, coaching or support to aid the turn around.

Encouragement must be only encouragement. If you try to mix encouragement with threats, then the person will only hear the threat that things could get worse. So instead you could say, “I know that you can do this. We wouldn’t have hired you if we weren’t sure of that”.  Or, “I know that you can do this because you’ve done it before”. And, “Is there anything I can do to help you”.

You have to give this person hope. You mustn’t take away his / her hope. It’s vital to getting the behaviour that you want.

A final thought

It could be that your hands are somewhat tied. Maybe you have procedures that have to be followed because they’re enshrined in company policies or because you have a union to deal with.

In the case of company policies, you should attempt to have them changed. Don’t wait until you’re faced with a problem, however.

Instead, as soon as you’ve finished reading this article, familiarise yourself with the policies where you work, and then discuss them with the powers-that-be about amending them. It could be that no one has looked at them for years, and a fresh rewrite is called for. It could also be that no one has come up with a better idea, or that it looked good on paper, but has never been put into practice. It really doesn’t matter.

As a manager, you have a responsibility to do what you can to change them so that the minimum amount of discipline is applied at each step. The purpose at every step in a disciplinary process is to improve performance. Punishment may come later, but especially at the verbal warning level, you want to keep it low-key. If you can’t change the procedures, then institute one of your own that precedes anything your organisation has in place.

This will help you to keep the people you supervise from getting into trouble, and they’ll appreciate what you’re doing for them. It could be something simple like going out for coffee together just to talk things over. In any case, you ought to be on very good relations with those in your charge, such that discipline never becomes an issue. That’s what the best managers do. If you follow this guidance, then you may never have to give anyone a verbal warning.

And isn’t that what you want?

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