PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
tive position at the practice, they do not have to be
paid a severance package.
•
2. Disciplinary Code
In the previous section, dismissal for misconduct
was outlined. However, it is important to remember
that dismissal in these circumstances should only be
used as a last resort. A formal disciplinary code will
provide guidelines as to how deal with discipline in
the workplace, ensuring fairness as well as preventing
unwanted comebacks by disgruntled employees.
The purpose of a disciplinary code, then, can be summarised as follows:
• To ensure that all employees conduct themselves
properly in the interests of workplace harmony,
safety and effectiveness.
• To guide employees and management as to the
conduct expected and the appropriate corrective
measures
The Reasons for Disciplinary Action
While the reasons for disciplinary action being taken
are almost limitless, they can all be summarised as follows:
• A vet practice must have certain rules and regulations to enable it to carry out its activities in an
orderly and meaningful way.
• To achieve this, it is essential that all employees
are aware of the behavioural norms and standards expected of them.
The above will only be successful if the disciplinary
policy and procedure are applied fairly and consistently.
The Aims of a Disciplinary Code
When creating and applying a disciplinary code, rather than seeing it as a guide to punishment, the code
should be centred on the following
• Rehabilitation
Correction and rehabilitation should be the cornerstone of good discipline and is prescribed before harsh penalties are unnecessarily applied.
• Deterrence
For example, despite counselling, failure to improve poor attendance may ultimately lead to
dismissal, thus acting as a deterrent to other employees.
• Prevention
This is achieved via progressive discipline because
warnings identify and give employees the chance
to stop the offending misconduct.
•
Fair Discipline
The LRA, backed up by the CCMA, Labour Court
and Industrial Court decisions made of the past
few years, have stressed that disciplinary action
must be both substantively fair, as well as procedurally fair.
• Procedural Fairness is achieved by the correct
application of disciplinary steps. Adherence to
disciplinary procedures helps to ensure that
discipline is administered consistently, fairly
and promptly.
• Substantive Fairness is achieved by adherence
to the disciplinary policy, guidelines, common
practice, the laws of South Africa, fairness and
consistency. This applies when determining
innocence or guilt and arriving at the corrective measures.
The LRA and the Courts require that employees
must know the rules and the consequences of infringements before any penalties are applied.
Progressive Discipline
While some offences merit a disciplinary hearing and possible dismissal on the first offence,
other infringements need to be dealt with via a
process of one, two or three warnings at progressively higher levels of severity, depending on
the seriousness of each specific offence. In this
way, warnings accumulated on a progressive basis could culminate in a disciplinary hearing and
possible dismissal. It is stressed that not all warnings may be accumulated in this way. That is, only
warnings for infringements of a similar type may
be accumulated in a particular line of progression.
After completing his studies Andrew
spend 2 years at a leading bank in
South Africa where he was involved
in the implementation of the new
labour legislation that was rolled out
in 1997, as well as managerial training.
Andrew Christie He followed this with a stint at a
BComm (Industrial Psychology)
computer-based training company
where he assisted in the development of learning
centers for major South African corporations.
Over the next five years he drove the development of
that shop into a successful chain of six. In 2005 he reentered the corporate world by forming his own consultancy, specialising in providing financial, tax and human resource services for SMME’s, as well as growth
management for medium corporates.
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