Disciplinary policy

Last updated: September 12, 2023

You should set out how employees will be disciplined in a company policy.

Disciplinary policy contents

Your disciplinary policy should cover what counts as employee misconduct and gross misconduct. It should also cover the stages of the disciplinary process, which are:

investigate the misconduct
try and resolve it informally. Please note that this stage may fail or may not be possible
hold a disciplinary hearing
inform the employee of the outcome
hold an appeal, if necessary

Access to the disciplinary policy

The policy must be easily available to everyone. For example, employees may have access to a hard copy or view it on the company intranet.

Applying the disciplinary policy

You must apply all aspects of the policy equally to all staff consistently and fairly. If you do not, employees could make a claim to an employment tribunal for discrimination.

It’s a good idea to check how the disciplinary policy was applied in previous cases when looking into a new allegation of employee misconduct. Taking precedents into account will help make the disciplinary procedure fair in the new case.