Role Of Discipline In Human Resource Management

1028 Words3 Pages

The article from the Human Resource Management Journal titled ‘The practice of discipline: evaluating the roles and relationship between managers and HR professionals’ seeks to shine a light on not just the application of work place discipline but the relationship between the human resources manager and the operational managers when it comes to employee discipline. The authors describe it as, “The progressive devolution of people management activities has left the responsibility for disciplinary decision making with operational managers.” (Jones & Saundry, 2012 pg. 252) They try to determine the ideal relationship between human resource managers and operational managers. In practice, workplace discipline started as a product of negotiation …show more content…

They including interviews with eight HR managers, nine operations managers, nine union representatives. The research discovered that all the organizations had written disciplinary and grievance procedures that were compliant with labor laws at the time. These formal procedures were commonly divided into four steps, verbal warning, written warning, final written warning, and dismissal. There were two organizations that provided additional steps and procedures but they included the four common steps as well. Overall the operations managers had the primary role for investigating any and all alleged disciplinary violations and decisions for deciding punishment. The human resource managers were not directly involved in the decision making during the formal discipline process. Their role was described as, “…To provide support, advice and guidance to line and operational managers. They were seen as the ‘technical’ legal experts whose main function was to ensure consistency and the robust application of procedure.” (Jones & Saundry, 2012 pg. 258) Though most HR professionals were comfortable with being in this role and having no involvement, some were still involved in disciplinary dispute resolutions. Often they were assisting operations managers who had little confidence or experience, and often feared they would be the cause of a lawsuit filed by an

Open Document