disciplinary

All Employers are required by law, as a minimum, to outline their disciplinary and dismissal rules and procedures in an employees written statement of terms and conditions.  The written statement can refer staff onto the Employers full, written Disciplinary Policy which Employers (of any size) are advised to have, and which they should let employees have access to. We look at what Employers need to provide here.

Employers do not have to follow a statutory disciplinary procedure any more but the 2009 ACAS code of practice on discipinary and grievance procedures sets out the basic principles that should be followed – see below. (However, in Northern Ireland the statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedures has not been repealed and therefore still needs to be followed and the ACAS code of practice does not apply – the NI Labour Relations Agency has an equivalent code of practice that has been effective from 3rd April 2011).

Your employer can call any employee to a disciplinary hearing if they think you have done something wrong (ideally they should talk to you informally first if the circumstances are appropriate). Your employer will use the disciplinary hearing as a way of explaining to you what they think you have done wrong, ask for your side of the situation; at the end they will explain what improvement (or other outcome) there needs to be.