You find yourself in a situation where an employee has done something wrong and you need to go through a formal process with them. Part of that process will be to conduct a disciplinary hearing. But, what happens at a disciplinary hearing?
In this post, we’re assuming that you’ve already conducted any necessary investigations and invited the employee to the hearing. This post focuses only on the disciplinary hearing itself.
A disciplinary hearing is just one part of a disciplinary process. Our business guide to managing disciplinaries gives more detail of all the different stages.
Please note, nothing in this post should be treated as professional advice. The information provided is generic. You should seek professional guidance if you are managing a disciplinary situation.
1. Your Opening Lines
Knowing what you’re going to say in the first part of the disciplinary hearing is very useful, particularly if you’re feeling a bit apprehensive. The opening structure that we’d recommend is as follows:
- Thank people for attending
- Introduce people and their roles i.e. I’m Bob and I’m going to be chairing the meeting and will make the decision on the outcome. This is James from HR and he’ll be taking notes and guiding us through the process. You’re XXX and you’re here to present your response to the allegations.”
- It’s possible that the employee will have exercised their right to be accompanied. In this case, you’ll introduce the accompanying individual and confirm their role. If the employee has not exercised their right to be accompanied, you’ll re-confirm that they have been informed of their right but chosen not to exercise it.
- Then you’ll confirm that no one should be recording the meeting.
- You’ll also confirm that the employee has been provided with details of the allegations against them and received copies of the evidence that is being taken into consideration.
- Then you explain the overall structure of the meeting. This is:
- Introductions which you’ll have made.Re-cap the allegations that have been made against the employee.Time for the employee to explain their position in relation to the allegations.
Of course, this isn’t an exact script or structure. You’ll need to change it depending on the situation. However, we do recommend scripting these opening lines so that you cover everything you need to cover.
2. Explain the Allegations
Having made the introductions and explained what happens at a disciplinary hearing, the next stage is to set out the allegations.
The allegations will have been put in writing to the employee in the invitation letter. Our guidance is that you simply re-read what is in the letter.
The reason for this is that you cannot introduce any new allegations during the disciplinary hearing. By sticking to what is in the letter you avoid potentially causing a procedural issue by speaking about something the employee was not expecting to discuss.
Where there are a series of allegations, a sensible approach is to take each allegation in turn. So, you read out the allegation and then ask the employee what they would like to say in return.
You listen to what they have to say, ask any clarification questions you have and move on to the next point.
3. Don’t Get Sucked into Debate
A key piece of advice that we would offer everyone who is chairing a disciplinary hearing is “don’t get sucked into debate”.
You are not there to argue with the employee about their view of events. You are there to listen and gather the information that you need in order to make a decision on an appropriate outcome.
If you disagree with what an employee is saying, you will be able to explain this disagreement in the outcome letter that you will send to them after the hearing.
Disciplinary hearings can quickly go off-the-rails and become confrontational if you start disagreeing with what the employee is putting forward as their response to the allegations.
4. Closing the Hearing
After you’ve run through each allegation and given the employee an opportunity to respond and asked all of the questions that you had, you can start bringing the hearing to a close.
The first step is to confirm to the employee that you’ve asked all of your questions. Ask them if there is anything else they would like to add.
Do listen carefully to what the employee says. If you were apprehensive about the process, you can be feeling very relieved to have reached the end without incident; alternatively, if it’s all gone horribly wrong, you can be desperate to leave the room! This can be a key moment for something to be missed. Just make sure that any additional points that the employee makes are captured in the meeting notes.
You’ll then confirm that you’re going to bring the meeting to a close. Explain that you’re going to take some time to consider all that you’ve heard. If you think you need to do some further investigation before you can reach a decision then explain that too.
It’s important that you are clear about when the employee can expect to hear the outcome. You also need to explain that the employee will have the right to appeal. Confirm that details on how to raise an appeal will be set out in the outcome letter that they will receive.
5. Key Takeaways
So, that’s what happens at a disciplinary hearing.
Remember:
- Script your opening lines so that you can be confident that you’ll cover everything you need to cover.
- Go through each allegation in turn and give the employee the chance to response.
- Don’t add any additional allegations during the meeting. Stick only to the allegations that were set out in the invitation letter.
- Don’t get sucked into debate. Listen and note what the employee has to say. You can respond to anything you disagree with in the outcome letter.
If you need to conduct a disciplinary hearing or have any questions about what happens at a disciplinary hearing and would like some help, do contact us.
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