Non-punitive discipline is a program that replaces unpaid suspensions with a disciplinary letter that equates to a suspension, thereby establishing that there has been previous discipline if misconduct occurs again. Positive aspects of non-punitive discipline from management’s perspective are that the employee does not actually leave the workplace, thereby avoiding the disruption to workflow and cost to fill in behind the employee. Positive aspects from the employee’s perspective are that no money is lost, and, in some cases, the “rehabilitation plan” which, if successfully completed, results in removal of the disciplinary letter within a specific period of time.
See Section 7: Conduct for a complete description of the program
See Section 6: Performance for Sample Performance Improvement Plans
See Section 7: Conduct for Sample Letters
All County employees are covered by the Non-Punitive Discipline Program. The Sheriff’s Office reserves the right to issue actual suspensions, rather than non-punitive disciplinary actions, as circumstances warrant.
Is It Performance or Conduct?
| BEHAVIOR | CATEGORY |
| An employee won’t perform an assignment. | Conduct |
| An employee can’t perform an assignment. | Performance |
| An employee is constantly late. | Conduct |
| An employee is not meeting a numeric quota of productivity. | Performance |
| An employee was rude to a coworker/customer. | Conduct |
| An employee’s work has frequent mistakes in it. | Performance |
| An employee has a “bad attitude.” | Neither – Managers must identify observable behavior. |