How to discipline an employee: the path, step by step

Start with the four moves

Most problems start small: ten minutes late, then twenty. Four moves keep them small.

• Notice it early. Once is a moment, twice is a pattern starting. Say something at twice: a private word about what you noticed and what you need.
• Talk privately. Not in front of the crew, and not by text. Use a text to set up the conversation and nothing more. If you’re angry, wait until you aren’t.
• Write it down the same day: the date, who, what you said, what they said. Facts, not labels: “Clocked in at 7:18, 7:22 and 7:31 for 7:00 shifts,” not “chronically late.”
• Follow through. Put the check-in date in your phone before they’ve left the room. If it got better, tell them so. If it didn’t, take the next step you said you’d take. The day after a hard conversation, treat them the way you treat everyone else: same shifts, same tone.

The text that sets it up:

“Can you grab me at 2:30, before you clock out? Ten minutes.”

A rule that lives only in your head isn’t a rule yet. If nobody ever told them, the first conversation sets the expectation.

The first words for the problems owners see most: late again, the no-call, no-show, calling out, the attitude, phones at work and mistakes you keep fixing. The rest are in the full list of free scripts.

The path, one step at a time

When the four moves don’t fix it, the problem moves up a path. Each step is more formal than the one before, and each leaves more on paper.

• Coaching. The private word above, recorded as a dated line in your notes.
• The documented conversation. Same tone, but you tell them you’re writing it down and what happens if it continues: how to give a verbal warning, with the free verbal warning template.
• The written warning. The facts, the rule or expectation, what has to change and by when, and the next step if it doesn’t. They sign to show they received it: how to write up an employee, with the free employee write-up form.
• The final warning. Says plainly what happens next: one more time, or a missed target, and the next step is ending the job. Give one only if you mean it: how to give a final written warning, with the free final written warning template.
• Letting someone go. One short, decided meeting, after you run the Check again: what to say when firing someone, and how to fire someone.

When the trouble is the quality of the work rather than behavior, a performance improvement plan gives these steps their shape: specific targets, dates and weekly check-ins. Start from the free performance improvement plan template.

Do you have to follow every step?

In almost every state, employment is “at will”: you can end it for any reason that isn’t an illegal one, unless a contract or a written promise says otherwise. So in most places the law doesn’t require the path. You follow it because it shows what the real reason was. If someone later says the real reason was their age or a complaint, a dated trail of conversations, warnings and chances answers that far better than your memory can.

If your handbook spells out discipline steps, follow it, or have it rewritten to say what you actually do. Where there’s a union contract, the contract governs discipline.

When a step can be skipped

Some conduct is serious enough to skip steps, sometimes straight to a final warning or to letting someone go: violence or a threat of it, theft you’ve confirmed, harassment that’s been looked into and confirmed, a safety violation that put someone in real danger, clocking in for a friend who isn’t there.

Even then the order stays the same: send them home pending a decision (suspension pending investigation), check the facts, get advice, then decide (letting someone go for one serious act). Never in the heat of the moment. And every step you skip becomes the comparison, so skip one only when you’d skip it for anyone who did the same thing.

The same step for everyone

The same problem gets the same step, whoever did it: your best friend, your nephew, your top stylist, the new dishwasher. The words are harder with a friend or family, but the step is the same. Before any step, check your notes for what you did the last time someone did this. If you let it go for someone else, either match that or write down why this time is different, using facts that have nothing to do with who they are. If you can’t write that reason down, you have your answer.

Decide how long a warning stays live, a year for example, and hold everyone to the same clock. And never count an absence for a protected reason, like paid leave your state or city requires you to give, family or other protected leave, jury duty or military duty. If you’re not sure whether one is, ask before you count it.

Learn the opening, then put the page away

Every script in the Playbook has the same shape, from the situation and the opening words to what never to say and what to write down that night. Learn the opening, then put the page away: reading from it makes you sound like you’re reading out a verdict. If they say something the script doesn’t cover, slow down:

“Let me think about that. I’ll come back to you tomorrow.”

Run the Check, and know when to stop

Run the Check before any write-up, any performance plan and any firing. It takes two minutes. A problem can be completely real and the timing still wrong. The list comes right after this section. Run it whatever your headcount: state and city laws often reach very small businesses, some from the very first hire.

Any yes, stop and get advice before the next step. Stop, too, when:

• they mention a lawyer, the labor board or any other agency. That’s their right: acknowledge it, write it down neutrally, and take no further step that day (when they say “lawyer”)
• an employee brings you a complaint of harassment, discrimination, unsafe conditions, unpaid wages or retaliation (when an employee brings you a complaint)
• they raise something personal that may need time off or a change at work
• you suspect theft, violence or someone, and the facts aren’t nailed down yet
• it’s a layoff, a release, a contract or a union contract, or a letter from a lawyer or an agency
• your gut says something’s off

You may well still be able to act, and often the advice is about how to go ahead, down to the wording and the timing. Call an employment attorney licensed in your state who represents employers, an HR advisor, or the HR or legal helpline many business insurance policies include. Have one page ready: a timeline with dates, what’s on paper, anything on the Check, and what you want to do.