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Maryland Progressive Discipline

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In Maryland, what is progressive discipline?

Many employers and professionals in Human Resources are confused about progressive discipline. It’s often mistakenly thought of as peer-review, or co-worker administered discipline. That’s not quite accurate.

Any system in the work place that sets well-defined consequences for rule violations, which increase with each successive violation of that rule, is termed progressive discipline. The purpose of this system is not to punish, but to inform the employee exactly what behavior is acceptable at work, and to allow that worker an opportunity to improve work performance.

A system of progressive discipline in the workplace has several advantages. Both employees and supervisors have clear-cut rules and consequences of policy. When a policy is violated, the employee knows exactly what to expect and the supervisor isn’t faced with determining what the correct disciplinary action should be. It’s already spelled out for both of them.

Consider the following situation. An employee takes excessively long lunches, with no discernable excuse. The first time it happens, the worker is sent to training on the employer’s policies regarding break times. The second time the employee breaks the rule, a verbal warning is issued. Third and fourth times translate to written warnings. Fifth time, the worker is suspended for three days, and upon the sixth occurrence is terminated.

Each step of this progression is documented in writing, including training and verbal warnings. The documentation is a measure to ensure the practice is being applied fairly and equally among employees, and provides a written record of the worker’s “progress”.

The example above defined the violation as breaking the rule without a good excuse. There can be times when applying the consequences needs some flexibility. A woman who gets back late from lunch, because she had to pick up her sick child from school and find a babysitter, is not the same as a woman who took a long lunch because she lost track of time. JH