So, what can you do when you need to discipline an employee? June 12, 2008 Dear Mr. John Howard: This written warning letter being provided to you for careless workmanship, which is a against company policy as pointed out in our employee handbook.. Share your experiences with us in the comments section below. Do whatever you can -- within reason -- to help the employee improve his performance. The purpose of the warning letter is to correct the behavior of an employee. An Elite CafeMedia Publisher - Update Privacy Preferences. Listen to the employee's explanation when you issue the verbal warning. Card payments collected by DeltaQuest Media, company no. This method allows your warning notice templates to be doubly effective now that you can provide more reminders for employees to improve their behavior. Be firm but polite at all times. For example, you could just as easily use these templates as a teacher in order to be certain of being able to reach your students more easily. If you have the employee sign, he could later say he never received a verbal warning, which could potentially cause problems during a lawsuit. As this is an official letter, you must carefully abide by some formatting rules to ensure that the information is clearly presented in a professional manner. If you do include any goals to aim for in your printable written warning templates, then do be sure to be specific regarding such goals. - Issue the warning letter to employee. Review any notes you may have made in the past regarding conversations with the employee regarding the same issues that have led you to decide to enact a verbal warning. All rights reserved. Whenever an employee is found violating the company rules s/he is issued a warning letter. Take note of anything you previously suggested that the employee should do to improve her behavior or work performance. If you were looking to complete a driving force toward helping such employees rehabilitate themselves, then you should be ready to use these letters to do so in order to get the kind of results you want. There are, of course, other essentials of an employee warning letter to consider when making one such letter yourself. The following points should be taken into consideration to write a warning letter to employee: - Clearly identify the conduct issue. Explain the problems with his work behavior or performance in a polite, professional manner. You should also be aware by now that late warning letter templates can be used in most any kind of situation, whether the issue concerns absenteeism, tardiness, or some other kind of offense. For example, it should say something like ‘Warning Letter for Employee Name’, followed by the reason for the reprimand. If you were really very bent on salvaging problematic employees, then verbal warning letters might be the perfect tool to help keep your employees more effective. The process can be made considerably easier if you give your subordinates a more effective map toward improving themselves. After all, this allows you to make sure that any verbal warnings were understood, which makes the task of amending any behavior much easier. Apple Pages. In this case, being aware of the functions of a written warning letter should make you all the more adept at using them yourself. Verify the employee understands that you are issuing a verbal warning and its consequences. Document the details of the verbal warning in writing for your records. You may realize that there is a problem that needs to be resolved to assist the employee. Generally an employee should receive a verbal warning for a first transgression. Tell him how he can correct the problem. Another function of different warning letters including HR warning letter templates is that they can serve to reinforce whatever warnings or notifications were given to employees verbally. Furthermore, when you consider that verbal warning letters are especially useful at recording this information, this can also make it easier to refer to specific events and dates if it should ever become necessary to do so. Instead, you’ll want written proof that can go in the employee’s file. Most verbal warning letters also serve to confirm previous meetings and talks, which is visible in most examples of verbal warning letter templates. Ask him if he understands how to correct the problem. If you really are set on making the most of your employees, then anything that might make them more likely to improve themselves should sound like an especially enticing tool. After all, this measure can help those ideas sink in to the minds of employees more strongly. Based in Texas, Cynthia Measom has been writing various parenting, business and finance and education articles since 2011. After all, there are any number of tips that you can use to make your letters all the more effective. Review any notes you may have made in the past regarding conversations with the employee regarding the same issues that have led you to decide to enact a verbal warning. Being that verbal warning letters are meant as follow-ups to previous verbal warnings, this makes it much easier to establish a sense of continuity. Of course, you should be aware of what functions verbal warning letters do have in order to find out exactly how you can apply that to any situation you are likely to encounter. Gather the facts of the situation before confronting the employee so your purpose and warning will be clear. During our meeting I described So, to ensure you’re fully covered next time you have a disciplinary situation, we’ve listed all the information, tips and steps to follow when you need to prepare your very own warning letter. And if you have any follow-up events listed in the future, it pays to have them included as early as possible to give your recipient a proper time frame to adjust themselves. When you are running a company or holding a position where your job is to manage a large number of employees in a company, the verbal warning letters become a mandatory requirement of the company. Ask another supervisor to witness the verbal warning. So you should keep in mind that while warning letters are able to serve as reminders in general, it is more of a requirement for verbal warning letters. Stage 1-Verbal warning. File Format. When it comes to serious one-time offences, it makes sense to bypass the verbal warning stage. Since you have a great deal of freedom with regard to choice of template and details in your sample warning letter templates, it pays if you stop to consider what templates you have available vis-à-vis what you need at the time. For example, you might want to make use of certain tips that might help make the job of using and writing your verbal warning letters a more easy job. The same can be said of a great many other kinds of documents such as first warning letter templates. Have you ever had to issue a warning letter before? Even during casual conversations with the employee about work performance issues, always take notes to refer to later. A verbal warning is a form a disciplinary action that is issued by verbally communicating your expectations to an employee and warning him that you will take further disciplinary action if his performance does not improve. address: The Black Church, St. Mary’s Place, Dublin 7, Ireland. Warning letters are common practice in everyday office work. This can even be considered a basic requirement of all warning letter example templates as you would have to have the proper date listed on your letter to be sure that it can properly reflect the reality of your actions. You may realize that there is a problem that needs to be resolved to assist the employee. The dates are always an important element of any warning letter. Ask the employee to accompany you a private area or office. If you wanted to really address the current problem and offer workable solutions, then you need to make sure that you select a template that corresponds to the situation, if only to make the writing process easier for yourself. Verbal warnings precede written ones. However, the most basic need this serves is to ensure that the disciplinary process is carried out according to proper procedure. Details. After all, you would want to properly remember all the relevant dates on which your employees committed any infractions so that you could have those recorded for the future. Tips for Using Verbal Warning Letters. Inform her that you are issuing her a verbal warning. ©2020 DeltaQuest Media. This can take the form of meetings scheduled for future dates as well as regular monitoring of your employees even after sending the letter. Knowing the facts will also help you defend your position if the employee tries to argue with you about past events. CareerAddict is a registered trademark of DeltaQuest Media. Sign up to our weekly newsletter for more great content and get 20% OFF our career test! And, to avoid those problems in the workplace, you can use Verbal warning letter to the concerned employees. This can help assure you of getting your desired results with regard to your employees. After all, the goals are meant to give your subordinates concrete milestones in the process of adjusting their behavior in general. This allows these templates to be used in a variety of situations, which means you need not worry about not being able to suit your templates to specific details of your own issues. Do not ask the employee to sign and date the document. - Prepare letter of warning. Ask the witnessing supervisor to sign and date the document. Memo: Date . With the help of these insights, you should be able to have a better understanding of some of the basics of writing an employee warning letter, particularly if you wanted the most effective means of writing one. Measom received a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Texas at Austin. Keeping this in mind can serve to make using your official warning letter templates all the more effective. This is a verbal warning, not a written warning. When previous conversations with a well-trained employee – one who knows what is expected and has no obstacles preventing him from carrying out his work responsibilities – have not resulted in the desired work behavior or performance, a verbal warning is the next logical step. That the letter also serves as confirmation also works as insurance that both parties involved in an issue understand all aspects of the problem completely and that they are on the same page. Use the words "verbal warning" and ensure that he knows his job is at risk unless he takes the appropriate steps to correct the problem.