You’ve been told that you face disciplinary action at work. You feel a mix of annoyance, disappointment and worry about what your accused of. You feel your job (and your reputation) may be at risk if the disciplinary case is decided against you.
Here are some simple, but frequently overlooked practical suggestions for increasing the likelihood that you will get a positive outcome from a disciplinary meeting at work:
Before any disciplinary meeting, get clarity on whether dismissal is a possible outcome. If you've received a written invitation to a disciplinary meeting, the invite letter should say. But if it doesn't, ask about this before the disciplinary meeting starts. Be sure. This is important.
If you are not completely sure from the papers your employer has given you about exactly what you are accused of and exactly how it is being said you should have behaved differently, ask your employer to tell you. And ask for the response to be in writing. Understanding just a rough outline of what you are alleged to have done wrong is not enough to help you thoroughly prepare your defence for the disciplinary meeting. Knowing precisely what you are accused of will maximise the effectiveness of your preparation, so it is worth asking your employer if you are not sure. You could even consider emailing your employer a specific list of questions seeking written clarity on specific aspects of the allegations against you. If you specifically ask, they should agree to provide this.
Is there anything about the disciplinary allegations that might actually, quite simply, be true? If so, give serious consideration to whether the better approach to your defence might be to focus on mitigating factors, demonstrating that you have genuinely learned from what happened. If the case against you really is that clear, denying the undeniable probably isn’t going to help you very much. But clearly explaining the background to what you did (e.g. serious family worries or illness that you were dealing with at the time; or tiredness because of a health issue) might well result in a better outcome.
Particularly if what you did is "borderline" in terms of whether your employer would be legally justified in dismissing you, showing genuine insight about your own responsibility for what happened and how you would do things differently in future can be the difference between your employer deciding to dismiss, or deciding not to. When employees don't demonstrate insight in this way, employers can lack confidence that the same problem won't happen again - and this can make it more likely that they will opt for dismissal in a borderline case.
Is your defence, factually, quite complicated, and are you worried that you will not be able to explain the nuances of it under the pressure of the disciplinary meeting itself? If so, consider setting out your defence in writing in advance of the disciplinary meeting, and giving a copy to the disciplinary decision maker at the start of the disciplinary meeting. Be clear at the start of the disciplinary meeting that you are doing that so you can be confident that you are providing all of the information that you think ought to be taken into account, and that you are also willing to talk the employer through the document and answer any questions about anything you have written. This approach can also be useful in circumstances where you are not confident that the employer’s minutes of what you say at the disciplinary meeting are going to be as accurate as they should be!
During the disciplinary meeting itself, you will be asked lots of questions. Under pressure, the temptation can be to try to answer every question quickly even if you are not 100% sure exactly what is being asked of you. If you don't completely understand the question that has been put to you, ask for clarification.
Who will the minute taker at the disciplinary meeting be? If you are not confident that the minutes will be accurate, check the disciplinary procedure to find out if you can electronically record the disciplinary meeting. If you are not sure whether you are permitted to electronically record the meeting, consider emailing your employer and asking them.
Identifying how to respond in these high-stress situations can be the difference between losing your job and keeping it. We have years of experience helping employees who face disciplinary allegations to accurately, but persuasively, present their side of the story.
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