Progressive Discipline

716 Progressive Discipline

Effective Date:

Revision Date:

The purpose of this policy is to state Sni Valley's position on administering equitable and consistent discipline for unsatisfactory conduct. The best disciplinary measure is the one that does not have to be enforced and comes from good leadership and fair supervision at all organizational levels.

Sni Valley's own best interest lies in ensuring fair treatment of all employees and volunteer members and in making certain that disciplinary actions are prompt, uniform, and impartial. The major purpose of any disciplinary action is to correct the problem, prevent recurrence, and prepare the employee/volunteer member for satisfactory service in the future.

Although employment with Sni Valley is based on mutual consent and both the employee and Sni Valley have the right to terminate employment at will, with or without cause or advance notice, Sni Valley may use progressive discipline at its discretion.

Disciplinary action may call for any of four steps -- verbal counseling, written warning, suspension with or without pay, or termination of employment/volunteer membership -- depending on the severity of the problem and the number of occurrences. There may be circumstances when one or more steps are bypassed.

Progressive discipline means that, with respect to most disciplinary problems, these steps will normally be followed: a first offense may call for a verbal counseling; a next offense may be followed by a written warning; another offense may lead to a suspension; and, still another offense may then lead to termination of employment/volunteer membership. If more than 12 months have passed since the last disciplinary action, the process will normally start over.

Sni Valley recognizes that there are certain types of employee/volunteer member problems that are serious enough to justify either a suspension, or, in extreme situations, termination of employment/volunteer membership, without going through the usual progressive discipline steps.

By using progressive discipline, we hope that most employee/volunteer member problems can be corrected at an early stage, benefiting both the employee/volunteer member and Sni Valley.

Policy No.  716  Issued  6/29/2000  Applicable  10/26/2000