Are your disciplinary actions building a healthy environment or demolishing employee morale? Let’s say, an employee forgets to meet a deadline or neglects to adhere to some organizational procedures. How do you respond? Do you do it with a calm and rational attitude or subdue them by demotivating them with a fierce attitude?
Forceful discipline at the workplace may affect the employees and influence the operation of the organization. Employees observe and compare how others are treated, and based on this, they develop attitudes toward organizational justice, employment security, and corporate culture.
Disciplinary actions can be powerful inspirations for employees who are eager to work effectively, or they can be extremely demotivational which can lead to conflict, disloyalty, and disrespect on the employees’ side. Well, is your attitude motivation or energy creating resentment? It is necessary to turn to the concept of workplace discipline to understand how culture, engagement, and business outcomes are constructed.
Index:
The Ripple Effect of Workplace Discipline
Discipline in the workplace is an inevitable occurrence. Research demonstrates that rules and policies are important in creating order, discipline, and work ethic in an organization. Nevertheless, it is important to analyze the nature of how organizations manage discipline as it could be effective with significantly different severe consequences.
An equilibrium, positive approach promotes a culture of transparency, trust, and ongoing development. When punishments are employed for unknown mistakes, employees may get scared and fail to achieve their work performance. Eventually, organizations and establishments will have high turnover, and employers will be given a bad reputation.
A SHRM survey conducted in 2023 on workplace discipline revealed that employees who practice fair disciplinary measures are more work-committed than those who experience them severely and are twice as likely to look for other job offers.
How Does Workplace Discipline Ripple Effect Work?
Discipline is thus not restricted to the employees who are punished. It is crucial for the whole workforce as the team members get influenced by noticing how other employees handle disciplinary actions. It influences them as follows:
- Level of psychological safety: (Will I be severely punished for making a mistake?)
- Their engagement and morale: (Am I allowed to be healthy and creative in my job, or does my organization just pay me to punish me for anything else?)
- Their long-term perspective on the company: (Is this a fair and strong place to work?)
Indeed, how workplace discipline is dealt with has ended up impacting organizational outcomes greatly.
The High Cost of Poor Disciplinary Practices
Workplace culture in India has recently been in the news due to stressful working conditions and rather doubtful measures related to employee discipline.
The recent case of death due to excessive pressure at the workplace involves 26-year-old accountant, Anna Sebastian Perayil from Pune working with Ernst & Young (EY). Her mother stated that Anna developed some health problems due to unachievable organizational demands and unsupportive managers.
Her case has raised concerns about the level of toxicity in India’s organizational workplace where disciplinary actions often lead to a culture of oppression rather than the culture of teamed-up disciplining.
Hence it is important how a company approaches disciplinary measures connected to retention, engagement, and even well-being.
How to Implement a Positive Disciplinary Culture
Any disciplinary measures to be effective must not discourage employees but inspire them, and this is where most HR professionals go wrong by being overly disciplinary. Here are five key strategies:
Set Clear Expectations
Managers should craft and properly communicate their employees’ policies and behavior expectations to eliminate misunderstandings. Employers should make the expectations clear regarding the right and wrong behaviors and the implications of misconduct.
Tips: Increase employee training, organize company seminars, and teach new policies through workbooks. Apply real-life cases to make guidelines as close to real life as possible.
Use a Model of Gradual Discipline
This is because a structured functional approach ensures employees get a fair disciplinary process. Rather than calling for immediate punishment, reassess the situation and apply measures such as verbal advice, letters, counseling, and resorting to formal measures. This offers the employees a chance to transcend to the next level and innovate, rather than feeling punished instantly.
Tips: Make sure that each step is framed as a positive learning experience. As part of personnel management, HR teams must provide employees a chance to resolve the issues that caused disciplinary measures.
Ensure Consistency and Fairness
Disciplinary action should follow a fair and equal standard to unfair dismissal amongst senior-level employees. Integrity in the workplace can be maintained through a clear system that builds trust with employees. According to the Gallup 2023 research, turnover rates are 40% lower in organizations with a good discipline culture than in those that employ punishing tactics.
Tips: Document the characteristics of disciplinary action so that there are no legal or HR issues in the future. Periodic audits are useful to detect patterns of bias as they provide a long-term picture of disciplinary progress.
Provide Support Alongside Discipline
It is also important to support discipline with positive measures such as coaching, counseling, and health promotion. If the employees feel that the organization is committed to their development, they are most likely to come up with positive responses.
Tips: Offer an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) that offers counseling, advice, and support for mental well-being, coaching, and stress management.
Encourage Open Feedback
Letting the employees freely express their opinions with regard to a policy or disciplinary measures taken creates a good culture. An open feedback culture also enhances the refinement of disciplinary measures and possible issues that may arise in an organization.
Tip: Include a suggestion box or ways to give anonymous feedback, so the employees can free their opinions on concerns.
Discipline as an Encouragement, Not a Punishment
Workplace discipline is not just to punish the employees but to guide them towards better performance. The future of work relates to an environment that:
- Workplace discipline should be positive to the extent that it helps to correct the employees.
- Emphasis on the employees’ health and no tolerance to toxic culture.
- HR has a crucial function in creating fair work environments by understanding and adapting existing policies to meet contemporary workplaces’ needs.
Wrapping Up!
Companies such as TCS and Infosys have already integrated mental well-being with performance management programs to show that the inclusion of both factors makes an organization more efficient, productive, and humane.
The disciplinary culture of organizations today is a determinant of organizational success in the future. That’s why the focus on the fair, transparent, and pro-growth approach to discipline ensures that employees are motivated and into improving their performance.
The next time you practice discipline, consider whether you are inspiring motivation or demotivation. It will determine the future steps of your company.