Employee Handbook: In-House Policy
Sample Incident Report
Dear Alice,
George Benson is a full-time Service Crew at Burp’z Fast food Restaurant (Wall Street branch). Mr. Benson was found to have violated the company’s attendance policy due to excessive tardiness, absences and several counts of No Call No Show (NCNS). After the conducted investigation and HR hearings with Mr. Benson, the branch manager recommends that the employee should reprimanded to the full extent of penalties in accordance to the attendance provisions of the Company Policy.
After the deliberation wit the HR Generalist and the employee’s immediate superior, attendance record checking and hearing. The employee was found to have violated the company’s policies on Sec.1 and 2 on Attendance and Tardiness. As a result, the Human Resources department decided to relieve Mr. Benson of his duties as a full-time Service Crew effective 7 days after the release of this decision. The employee will be notified of the decision by his manager and required to submit all issued uniforms, Company ID and pay any monetary obligations due to the company for clearance purposes.
Sincerely Yours,
Sarah Michelle Gellar – HR Manager
Analysis
Above is a sample of decision letter sent to the HR department by the HR Manager after careful evaluation and investigation of the employee’s case as reported by the company’s branch manager. The exampled case pertains to company policy on attendance and tardiness. This policy sets the rule and guidelines that the employees need to adhere upon in terms of schedules. It defines the manner of employee’s work schedule, time off or any act of the employee to notify his immediate superior on any event of late arrivals or absences. For example, the employees are only allowed to incur absences or tardiness within a defined period of time and attendance policy would determine the consequences of not adhering to the set guidelines.
In the exampled case, the employee was relieved of his duty as a Service Crew due to the violation of the said company policy. The preferred policy when firing an employee should include a notice of termination and specific time when the termination order will take effect. This is to allow the employee to settle his obligations to the company and to his fellow employees before the termination order takes effect. The time given to the employee should not be sufficient enough for him to clear his obligations including submission of any materials issued by the company upon employment. It is necessary that the employee clear himself of any dues from colleagues and the company to allow him to obtain a work clearance after he exits. That way, the employee would be able to get himself ready with the clearance if he decided to look for another job right after he exits from the current employer.
The term used in the exampled case is “relieved of duty” for the reason that the term “fire” is not a professional term that should be used in any business. In fact, the term itself has a negative connotation, which would have demoralizing implications. Termination on the other hand constitutes the same harsh effect on the employee being relieved.
Attendance issue is among the most common infraction that an employee commits during employment. The reason that there is a number of infractions and timetable set is to give room for the employee to improve his attendance issues and retract the ones that have already incurred. Because of the commonality of the problem, companies make sure that their policies also include provisions that will address employee attendance. On the other hand, there are exemptions to the rule. Employees can be terminated due to absences if it becomes habitual or not justified. If the employee has properly justified their absences and tardiness as something due to personal, family or health reasons, they should be given adequate consideration and should not be fired.
Under the labor law, employees cannot be unreasonably terminated from their employment unless the company has proven that infractions incurred were not properly justified or habitually committed by the employee. In addition, despite the apparent shortcomings of the employee they are still entitled to the due process such as investigation, preliminary hearing with the Human Resources generalist and successive notice of disciplinary action. In order for the boss to justify it as legal termination, the first set of infractions must have a corresponding disciplinary action. For example, absence without notice for three consecutive days should constitute a final warning. Three consecutive absences with prior notice within a month will result to a written warning and if the employee was not able to improve his attendance the succeeding infractions will earn a second warning, last warning and lastly, termination.
If the employee did not notify his immediate supervisor for his absences and does it regularly, the corresponding disciplinary actions will be a final warning and eventually termination. In terms of tardiness, it would be more appropriate if the number of minutes and hours tardy were to be accumulated. If the accumulated minutes and hours resulted to the same number of days absent, the same disciplinary action will be imposed following four stages of action. There should be a written warning, second warning and second warning before termination. On the other hand, the decision to terminate the employee should also consider his work performance accomplishments and both should be given equal weight when making a decision to terminate.
