Can The Salary Hike Be Stopped To An Employee On Disciplinary Grounds

Hi Friends,

I have a colleague of mine who is very good at her work. She is always willing to take on any additional responsibility and delivers with perfection. Last year, she became too involved with a male colleague on a personal level through SMS and emails. However, she quickly realized her mistake and corrected her actions. There were no official complaints about it. The management learned about the situation through the grapevine and decided to reduce her annual increment below the set slab for the year. In terms of her work performance, there are no mistakes that can be pointed out.

For my own understanding, is it fair on the management's part to take such action when there have been no official complaints from anyone? She only communicated with him through personal messages via SMS and emails. We cannot find any faults in her official work.

Please clarify.

Greetings,

Apologies if I may sound curious, but this seems like a rather trivial reason to halt someone's increment. Did her actions impact someone's productivity? Did he file a complaint against her? Was she given both verbal and written warnings about it? What she did appears to be personal. How was this integrated into her job?

Please help us understand.

Hi,

In addition to what (Cite Contribution) said, I would like to know if the emails exchanged between her colleague and her were through the official email ID or personal ID. If the emails were exchanged through the official email ID, then yes, it is a breach of conduct and against the email policy (if it exists in your company). This behavior will lead to disciplinary action but not to termination. If the conversation was done through the channel which I assumed above, then management has full rights to cut her increment slab for the previous year.

First of all, this is not the ground for disciplinary action. Second, as long as she does not violate any company policy, there is no question of disciplinary action against her.

Dear Friends,

Thank you.

Regarding (Cite Contribution)'s queries, the answer to all the questions is no. She has messaged only to the private mobile number of both the persons and emailed or chatted partly through personal email id and partly through a professional email id. However, there is no email policy as such.

Greetings,

Then there are more reasons why her increments have been stopped. Salary hikes are directly based on the results generated. A personal action, unless gravely reported and warned can't amount to a punishment. What about the other person? Had he been penalized as well? This doesn't sound enough. Her actions hadn't affected productivity or his career. Did she speak to her reporting managers? How is she so sure about the reason? I find the reason hard to believe. Are there any cluster formations in her firm? If things are transparent, this cannot be the reason.

I agree with (Cite Contribution), there is more to this than a simple intra-office romance issue.

If I were a betting man, I would put my money on a mix of "workplace animosity and opportunism." In simple words, someone doesn't like her and has made full use of this opportunity to discreetly express it... :-) Let me try and make sense of what I have just suggested...

Your friend is an excellent performer, not only completing her tasks but taking additional responsibilities as well. (I'm trusting this statement on its full merit without discounting any "good relationship" biases that naturally come in any human assessment of each other). So if there were people like colleagues, immediate bosses, or even seniors from other departments who had some kind of negative feelings towards her, they would be unable to formally act against her. This romance episode gave that someone an ideal opportunity to strike. I think it is pure office politics at play here.

Has your friend had a word with the management about this? What was their official version? And what is the unofficial version (can be found out through the grapevine as well).

Has the guy been penalized as well? I won't be surprised if that is not the case... It will give us an indication of who might be behind this action...

Who dun it? :-) Well, that would depend on how your appraisal system works... Look at the appraisal system. See who all in an influencing role in the system and that would lead you to the source of the issue... Again, don't be too surprised if it is not the guy at the top but someone in between...

Cheers,

Navneet

Invalid and unsound reasons to stop a salary hike. The same shall be clarified with management by seeking reasons for stopping the hike.

He/She used private emails or mobiles to chat with her male colleague, but both have utilized the official work hours for personal matters. Both are at fault, and the management has every right to disallow their increments.

Pon

This is a case of undue exploitation. Unfortunately, personal scores seem to be settled using performance appraisal, recognition, and reward programs being influenced by someone's personal whims and fancies.

If the management wanted to send a message to the other employees by holding back increments, they should realize that they have set forth a very poor example that the HR is incompetent at defining and developing an appropriate performance appraisal and recognition plan. The HR should clearly develop a policy that states what shall be deemed as appropriate and inappropriate or unacceptable employee behavior. It is a very sensitive topic, but no organization has the right to discourage or encourage the personal relations between employees.

The organization shall lose many good employees like this.