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CASE 4: Employee rights and managing discipline

This week's topic is very important for both, those working as employees and as managers. It is crucial for a mutually beneficial cooperation that both sides understand what is required and what is unacceptable and also what are the policies in case of violation. I think that unfortunately everybody will be at least once in their working life treated unfairly, that's why understanding this topic is necessary for everybody.

The HR department plays a big role in this area. I clearly shows the importance of HR in an organizational structure. It sets the policies that inform both, employees and managers about their rights and responsibilities and in case of misunderstanding serves as an 'advocate'. 

 Starting with the employee rights, they are divided into three main groups. The first one being statutory rights, which are protected by country's law and represent basic rights such as the protection from discrimination or unsafe working environment. The second group are contractual rights, which are working conditions agreed in the working contract, signed at the beginning of the employment. Usually, there is the job description, required working times, desired behavior at work, pay, etc. Every employee has to sign this contract to confirm his or her agreement. What should such agreement include in Finland can be found from the Guide to Working in Finland. Finally, there is also a large group of other rights, which are not written in contracts but are generally required and result in employees' loyalty and motivation. Examples are a fair and ethical treatment from the manager, privacy (mainly related to off-working time) or the right of speech (limited to the extent that doesn't harm the company).

Naturally, the managers also have their rights. These include all general functions of a company- running a business, generating profit, rights related to the workforce (hiring, managing, assigning, promoting,...). The rights of the management are limited by contracts and labor unions that protect employees' interests.
A right that is generally not accepted in Europe but largely used in the US is so-called Employment at Will. This means immediate end of the employer-employee relationship for a reasonable cause. In Europe, this is only possible in case of criminal behavior. According to the source mentioned above, an employee can end the contract at any time without giving a reason, but this is not true for the employer. The employment at will is especially useful for small business, where a presence of even one bad employee can cause significant damage.

Employee rights challenges

There are certain areas, where the line between the rights of employees and managers is challenged. These situations have to be handled with special caution. 
One of these situations is a random drug testing. which can raise a lot of question, the result can be misleading and the whole situation may undermine the loyalty to the company.

Other, very common challenge is Electronic monitoring, which is common in shops as a part of employee protection. The problem is that it can invade the privacy and if course it is unpleasant for the employees. If an employer decides to monitor, they should first provide guidelines of unacceptable behavior, and use the monitoring also as a tool to provide feedback and improvement for training. the employer should never monitor the employees if they don't know about it.

Effective policies are also needed in the case of Whistle-Blowing. This means that an employee discloses an illegal, immoral,... behavior to third-party authorities that may take an action. This can be extremely harmful to the company. That's why businesses should encourage employees to handle such things internally first.

It is common nowadays that employees have more than one job to earn extra money. In this case, the employer has the right to regulate it only if it intervenes with employee's first job. Either that it lowers performance, it is illegal (in case of drivers for example) or a person works for a direct competitor. These actions are known as restrictions on Moonlight. 

The last challenge mentioned in our course book is a delicate situation of handling workplace romance. Generally, it is not restricted by companies as long as it is not a relationship between a supervisor and a subordinate. In that case, one of the workers has to be relocated. Other than that, companies apply a range of policies varying from restricting and limiting to ignoring or even encouraging.

After describing the possible situations, it is important to talk about what to do when such situations happen- about disciplining employees. Five things should be considered before disciplining an employee: 1. is the disciplining needed? 2. What are the main goals of the discussion? 3. There should a two-way discussion about the problem, rather than lecturing. 4. During this discussion, a follow-up plan of improvement should be established 5. In the end, the strengths of the employee should be highlighted to end on a positive note.
There are two approaches to communicating the desired change of behavior to employees. The progressive is the traditional one. Basically, the manager gives the employee a chance to correct their behavior by giving scaling warnings. Each of these warnings is followed by more and more severe punishment. If the employee is still unable to fix his behavior, the final stage is termination from the job. In case of serious violation, the warnings can be skipped and the employee is terminated. Those serious violations involve using drugs or alcohol on the job, theft, dishonesty or physical assault (of a coworker, customer or supervisor). Minor violations (such as absenteeism, violation of dress code, or a safety rule or incompetence) are disciplined three to four steps. The later steps are also documented and added to an employee's personnel file.
The second approach is called positive discipline. Companies taking this approach don't give punishment as these may be discouraging and lead to deceiving employees. Instead, those who misbehave are provided with counseling sessions (either with a manager, or HR staff), where the causes and a possible solution that would suit both is discussed. This process costs time and money (spent on training managers for counseling) but has proven very effective in many ways.

An important factor related to disciplining is administrating and managing discipline. managers have to make sure, they provide fair and consistent treatment. Also, all employees have to know what is expected of them and are possible causes in case of violation. To protect the management, evidence, and documentation of facts should be collected to defend in case of a lawsuit.
The management has to make sure, the disciplining is reasonable, that's what the Just cause standard of discipline is for. It consists of seven important questions. A manager has to answer yes to all of them to be sure the discipline is justified.

It often happens that employees feel that the disciplining is unfair and that they shouldn't be punished. It is important for a company to have a set of policies that give an employee the opportunity to understand the procedure, see the documentation and to talk to somebody about how they feel about the situation. (This is called the open door policy).

As the last topic, the book gives examples of difficult behavior and how to manage it. In all cases, the first thing the manager has to consider is whether the rule that is being violated is reasonable and whether the rule shouldn't be changed.
One of the very common violations is a poor attendance. This can also have reasonable cause and that's why the manager should discuss the solution together with the employee. Maybe flexible working hours, work from home or redesigning the job might help to solve the problem.
A similar problem is a poor performance. That can be removed or even prevented by performance appraisals. Sometimes the problem is not on the employee's side. This problem is also described in the case 4B (offensive notes on receipts). In this case, it is very dangerous to the public view of the company and due to the social media, it can be spread worldwide. And all of that only because of few employees at the very end of the process. 
Another problem is insubordination, which refers to the employee disobeying the employer. This is not a violation in case the employer requires the employee to do an illegal or unsafe task. 

Moving to more serious violations, workplace bullying was also mentioned in our case (4A) in one of the most serious way- sexual harassment, which cannot be tolerated. In Europe, there is a European Agency for Safety and Health at work which defines bullying, describes possible causes, the legislature provided by the European Parliament and suggest possible ways to deal with bullies at the workplace. 
It is good for a company to have a statement against such violations. Something like: 'we treat each other with respect and dignity' sets the tone of the cooperation.
Final serious violations are alcohol and drug misuse, which is also very delicate problem since it can have a huge impact on employees' performance, but the employer is only allowed to test the employee on alcohol or drugs if he/she has a serious suspicion and an evidence of poor performance based on the misuse.
 
Sources:

FACTS EU-OSHA. Bullying at work. Available from: file:///C:/Users/Karolina/Downloads/EU%20OSHA%20Factsheet%2023%20Bullying%20at%20work.pdf. Accessed: 27.2.2018.

FOX NEWS Food & Drink. Receipt Rage: Why Food is Being Served with a side of hate. Available from: http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2015/08/28/receipt-rage-why-food-is-being-served-with-side-hate.html. Accessed: 27.2.2018.

Gómez-Mejia, L. & Balkin, D. & Cardy, R. Managing Human Resources. Pearson Global Edition. 8th edition.

Guide to Working in Finland. Employment. Available from: http://www.guidetoworkinginfinland.fi/35/employment. Accessed: 27.2.2018.

The New York Times. New York Police Inspector Is Charged With Sexually Abusing Female Officer. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/nyregion/new-york-police-sexual-abuse-of-officer.html?_r=0. Accessed: 27.2.2018.





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