JLP Responsible Sourcing Part V: Discipline
In our last post, we discussed the issues of health, safety, and hygiene and the hazards you need to look out for, corresponding to section D of the report. In today's post, we cover section E of The John Lewis Partnership's Responsible Sourcing Supplier Workbook which covers discipline.
Discipline refers to the treatment of workers and the issue here is whether or not they are treated fairly and with respect. Unacceptable discipline ranges from verbal abuse, shouting and threat of abuse through bullying and illegal fines all the way to sexual harassment and abuse, beatings, and humiliating punishments.
Why is this an issue? Research by the John Lewis Partnership has discovered the following facts:
- a sexual harassment study in commercial agriculture and textile manufacturing in Kenya found that over 90% of respondents had experienced or observed sexual abuse and 95% of women who had suffered abuse were afraid to report the problem for fear of losing their jobs
- workers in England and Wales experienced an estimated 849,000 incidents of violence in 2002/2003
- workplace bullying contributes to an estimated loss of 18 million working days every year in the UK as victims of workplace bullying take an average of seven additional days off per year
In order to prevent discipline-related issues, as an employer, you need to ensure that:
- no worker is subject to, or threatened with, physical, sexual, or verbal abuse
- managers, supervisors, and line-leaders do not use any kind of harassment, bullying, or intimidation
- fines are not used as a disciplinary measure
- disciplinary policies and procedures are transparent, applied equally to all employers, and effectively communicated to all workers in their language
- there is a formal grievance procedure in place
- managers and supervisors understand the disciplinary procedures
- records are kept on disciplinary and grievance actions
- dismissals are only on legal grounds
- positive incentives are in place to promote good behavior
In our next post, we'll tackle the fifth major issue addressed by the workbook, freedom of association and employee representation. (You can access all of the posts in the series (to-date) by selecting the JLP category at any time.)
In a perfect world all employees would come to work on time, work diligently and cohesively communicate with their co-workers.
We do not live in a perfect world.
At some point supervisors and human resources managers must discipline an employee for behavior that is disruptive to a corporation and work enviorment.
Employee discipline may include oral warning, written warning, suspension and ultimately discharge.
The goal of employee discipline is to correct unsatisfactory behavior and or improve performance. In many instances the employee may need additional training and coaching to correct behavior.
An anger management course is an effective intervention for employees experiencing stress or exhibiting violent and aggressive behavior. Anger management classes teach communication skills, stress management, and can raise emotional intelligence.
In most cases it is more cost effective to re-train a good employee rather than hire someone new with an unknown capability and attitude.
Shannon Munford M.A.
http://angerarchive.blogspot.com
Shannon, If you're going to use my blog as an advertising medium, please don't ignore the point of the post. No where in the post did I state, or even imply, that discipline was unnecessary, or that it is wrong to discipline an employee, so long as such discipline is done fairly and with respect.
The point was that there are a number of companies, particularly in the developing world, who do not treat, and discipline, their employees in acceptable manners. There are companies that still resort to shouting, verbal abuse, threats, harassment, sexual harassment, and physical abuse as a form of discipline, which is clearly not acceptable.
Warnings, verbal and written, suspension, and discharges are all acceptable, as long as they are done calmly, fairly, and with cause with respect to communicated conduct policies. Education and re-training are of course preferred steps if the employee is productive but just not conducting him or her self in a professional manner.