Feedback Required For Warning Letter For Misbehaviour With Senior

Dear Seniors,

Greetings for the day!

Today one of our company employee refused to obey the instruction given to him by his immediate authority. Hence our GM asked me to issue the concerned employee a warning letter. I have drafted the letter with help of citehr, which is as followed:

Date:

To

Mr.

SUBJECT: WARNING LETTER

Dear,

This is to inform you that we have received complaint against you about your involvement in improper behaviour with Senior. You have not followed the instruction that were given to you by your immediate authority.

The above act is a serious misconduct and attracts the strict disciplinary action against you.

Therefore in your interest, we are serving you the warning letter & hereby giving you an opportunity to improve your conduct in near future, failing which, you will make yourself liable for disciplinary action.

For (company name)

I request you all to Kindly give me your valuable suggestion on the same to make it more professional.

Thanking you all in anticipation,

with warm regards,

Trupti

Dear Trupti,

First and foremost, I must appreciate you for writing on your own and asking for suggestions. In most of the cases I found juniors are wary of writing and they wanted 100% spoon feeding. You do not belong to this category. Very well!

Now coming to improvisation of your draft. It is as below:

+++++

Date:

To

Mr.

Employee No:


1. It has been observed that your manager Mr _______ instructed you to _____ (mention here what the employee was told to do) on _____ (date) at ______ hours (time). You had refused to oblige the instruction of your manager.

2. Your refusal to implement your manager's instruction is wilful insubordination. Wilful insubordination is "misconduct" and the same has been viewed seriously.

3. You are hereby warned to improve your conduct and cooperate with your manager. Disobedience to the authority vitiates the work atmosphere. If instance of this kind recurs, severe disciplinary action will be taken against you.

_______ (Name of the person issuing letter)

_______ (Designation)

For ___________ (name of your company)

+++++

Note: - Please note the following points in drafting:

a) Always give numbers to the paragraphs.

b) This is letter warning. Hence you don't have to address that employee as "Dear _____". Just start with the main letter.

c) While issuing the warning, you should write clearly about the nature of offense i.e. what happened, where it happened and when it happened.

d) Do you have approved standing orders? If yes, then you can quote the clause No, paragraph No, Section of No of the "misconduct" mentioned in the standing orders. It will add weight to the warning letter and show that your action is consistent with the standing orders. Else you can take help of the Standing Orders Act of your state.

e) Take a printout on your company letterhead. Issue the original to the employee and obtain his signature on the second copy. Tell him to write "read and understood" while accepting the warning letter.

All the best!

Dinesh V Divekar

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

Dear Dinesh Sir,
Thank you so much for reviewing my warning letter and giving me useful instructions which I will follow throughout my career.
with warm regards,
Trupti

Hello Trupti,

I am with Dinesh V Divekar in conveying kudos to the learning method you have adopted--unlike many of such postings we get to see in CiteHR. Do keep it up--frankly it will take one a long way.

Coming to the Letter you propose to issue to the employee--Warning Letter--I am not so sure if that's the right way.

By doing so, you are in fact PRE-JUDGING the whole issue--that the employee is wrong. What if he/she goes legal to say that he didn't make any mistake, but it was the superior who actually provoked him/her [which could be possible too]? And also, pl note that now-a-days going legal can also include going to the media--NOT that this WILL happen, but it would be wise for the employer to include this aspect in their calculations--for the Worst-case-scenario.

I think you would need to FiRST issue a Show-Cause Notice to the employee--where he/she gets a chance to give his/her version of the incident/situation IN WRITING. based on the response/reply, you can then follow it up with the Warning Letter- IF warranted.

In a single line: Your Primary focus has to be the Company's Interest--NOT any individual [including the MD]. While this may prove to be tough to follow always, the least you NEED to do is to give your views IN WRITING [just buy time to think & follow with an e-mail later, without giving any chance to be suspected of your intent]. Even then, if you are instructed to do something that COULD go against the Company's interests, you would be covering yourself.

Dinesh--What would say?

Rgds,

TS

Dear Satish,

Issuing the show cause notice is correct no doubt. What you are trying to say is that we should give chance to the accused to defend his/her position. This way we will understand both sides.

However, my views are as below.

There are two types of misconducts - major and minor. For every major misconduct, we need to conduct the domestic enquiry. Minor misconducts can be handled with show cause notice.

Now imagine there are some 200 employees in the company. There will be some misconduct every other day. Every time should we issue show cause notice, wait for the reply of defaulter and then issue him/her warning letter? In that case the organisation will become quite bureaucratic. Secondly, it will erode the authority of the managers as well. The rigmarole will also slow down the decision making process.

Now coming to Truti's case. If the misconduct is proved then G.M. can very well call the employee and his/her manager to his office. Listen both sides carefully and give the verdict immediately. As a follow up warning letter can be given. However, everything depends on the gravity of the case or misconduct. What is important here is not just listening to the manager but listening to the employee as well and then issuing the warning letter.

If the defaulter repeats the misconduct, then we can issue the show cause notice, ask the explanation. If the explanation is not satisfactory, we can award him/her suitable punishment. However, if the misconduct is conducted for the first time then I have found the defaulters are issued with warning letters directly.

My experience: - During my HR days, I use to be busy in meetings. Taking benefit of my non-availability in the department, I found my HR Executive use to go out of office for breakfast or something else. At times I was let down because of her absence in HR Department. I had told her 2-3 times not to lock the department and go away when I was away for meeting. Fourth time when she repeated the fault, I had issued her warning letter. What you would do in such case - issue show cause notice or issue warning letter directly?

This is what I feel. Other senior members can give their views as well.

Thanks,

Dinesh V Divekar

Hello Dinesh V Divekar,

The situation mentioned by Trupti & w.r.t. your HR Executive are a bit different for 2 reasons:

1] In your case, YOU are a party to the situation, while in Trupti's case, she is a Third party [the main contending parties being the employee concerned & the GM/Manager].

2] Even though you didn't issue a Show-cause Notice, you had already 'in spirit' issued it, more than once, by way of verbal warnings. Here I am going by the lack of inputs from Trupti [hence presuming that no Show cause notice was given, either in written or verbal form].

So, in your example of your HR Executive, what you did is right.

While I was referring to the Show cause Notice, I was inferring to it's both 'in-spirit' & 'written' forms, since Trupti is a third party & she needs to build-up evidence which is acceptable to both the other 2 parties AND fulfill the Company bylaws. Even if the concerned Manager has issued verbal notices/cautions, he/she still needs to prove that it was done ONCE THE CASE CROSSES the departmental boundary.

Frankly, the concerned GM should have sorted-out the problem @ his level, unless this is a Union situation [assuming it wasn't done at all or not done in true spirit, since Trupti didn't mention it clearly]. I have seen quite a few situations like this one--where the concerned Head of dept just didn't want to take a stand & transfer the responsibility of handling HR issues to HR dept--they have strange reason/logic for this--'IT'S HR DEPT'S PROBLEM/ISSUE--little realizing that it's HIS/HER Dept that is getting effected due to such situations [more often found in Public sector companies, even though private sector isn't immune too]. Sometimes, politics/ego-clashes also play a part in the response mechanism of the Dept Head. I think this is what differentiates the 'in spirit' & 'formal' issuance of the Show-cause Notice. For such people, the focus is more on the formality of issuing the Notice than the consequences of such an action--foremost being the time-lag for the solution to emerge.

The Best-case-Scenario for such situations would be to refer to HR, WHEN ALL ELSE FAILED at the local/department level--not as an action choice of First Preference.

Well, at least this is my take on the subject.

Rgds,

TS

@Dinesh Divekar
is it mandatory to add nature of offense(all details like where it happened and when it happened) in the warning letter if it is issued in response to the court of inquiry and the subject is well aware of incident?

@Dinesh Divekar
is it mandatory to add nature of offense(all details like where it happened and when it happened) in the warning letter if it is issued in response to the court of inquiry and the subject is well aware of incident?
attribution https://www.citehr.com/411361-feedba...#ixzz2qX1m6bYz

Dear Saba,

If the warning letter is issued after conducting the court of inquiry then no need to give the entire history of the case. All that is required to mention is -

"Reference is made to ______ (letter No) dated _____. Through this letter you were told to depose before Court of Inquiry (COI)." Then you can write "your misconduct has been proved under the provisions of ____ (mention clause number, paragraph number of some act, law, standing order etc). You are hereby warned ...."

OR

"It has been emerged in the COI that you did not commit any misconduct hence you have been exonerated"

By the way, are you from defence? I ask this question because in defence organisation Court of Inquiry (COI) is conducted. Otherwise the equivalent term in civil organisations is "Domestic Enquiry".

Ok...

Dinesh Divekar

Dear Saba,
In hurry, it appears that I have given some wrong information. I regret for it.
When a court of inquiry is conducted and if the someone's misconduct is established then the defaulter is charge-sheeted. If the alleged person is not found guilty then the person is just let off. No need to issue letter as such. Further usage of my word "exonerated" was quite inappropriate. It is judicial court that exonerates an accused. On the contrary the presiding officer of COI does not have powers to punish someone. All that he/she does is to find the facts and establish blameworthiness of the persons involved in the incident.
Hope I have given clarification on my past post.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar