What disciplinary sanctions does the employer have the right to apply: types, application

It is difficult to find an ideal employee, therefore misconduct periodically occurs that affects the work of the entire commercial structure or part of it. What to do? Do not dismiss employees if they have committed minor misconduct, right? But you cannot close your eyes to this. What to do in this case? Disciplinary action comes to the rescue. What are they? What disciplinary sanctions does the employer have the right to apply under labor law?

general information

All of these questions have clear answers. They must be addressed to the Labor Code. It states that for failure to perform or improper performance of work by an employee, the employer has the right to impose disciplinary sanctions of the following types:

1. Remark (usually oral).
2. Rebuke.
3. Dismissal if there are appropriate grounds.

But the list is not limited to this. Other types of disciplinary sanctions applied by the employer to employees are established by federal laws, as well as charters and regulations for certain categories of workers, for example, law enforcement officers. But if there is no regulatory framework, then other types of penalties cannot be applied.

What is the application order like?

Although the employer may apply various disciplinary sanctions to employees, nevertheless there is a certain procedure by which all this is done. Initially, it is necessary to request an explanation from the employee in writing. This must be done before disciplinary action is taken. An employer who misses this stage may be disappointed when the employee appeals against his decision on the basis of non-compliance with the procedural rules. In case of refusal to sign, an act of this is drawn up. If the employee does not want to give explanations, then this is not an obstacle to the subsequent application of the penalty. In this case, a number of restrictions have to be taken into account:

1. A disciplinary sanction must be imposed on time no later than one month after the misconduct was discovered. At the same time, the time of the illness, being on vacation, and the period that is required to form and take into account the views of the representative body of employees are not considered.
2. Disciplinary action after 6 months from the date of misconduct is not applicable. According to the results of the audit, audit or financial and economic audit - the deadline is shifted to two years after the commission. The criminal proceedings are not included in these time periods.
3. For one misconduct, only one disciplinary punishment may be imposed.

What next?

So, the first stage with obtaining explanations is passed. Then a decision is made on recovery. To legitimize it, an order or instruction of the employer is created. It refers to the application of a certain disciplinary sanction. Then it is transferred to the employee for signing. Three days are allotted for this. If he refuses, then an act of this should be drawn up.

The employee may appeal the disciplinary action received at the state labor inspectorate. As an alternative - bodies specializing in individual labor disputes. In addition, the recovery may be canceled by the employer. But no later than a year from the date of its application.

You can act on your own initiative, and at the request of the employee or his immediate supervisor (representative body of employees). The latter may ask for an additional investigation into the violation. And the law stipulates that the employer has no right to refuse. He must conduct an additional investigation, reporting his results to the representative body. True, this applies only to the study of the activities of the head of the organization and his deputies for violations of the law and violation of collective agreements. Before applying disciplinary action, the employer must carefully study all the points in order not to make an erroneous decision. After all, it can be expensive.

Legislative framework for attracting

The most important and important document in this matter is the Labor Code. It is in it that spelling the organization’s employees to disciplinary liability is prescribed. It examines what misconduct can be done, as well as how the process itself looks. Deviation from the established framework can be interpreted as a violation of the Labor Code.

In the Labor Code there is information about which disciplinary sanctions the employer has the right to apply, regardless of what kind of area is involved. For example, for a regular store, the number of options is limited to remarking, reprimanding and dismissal. While for law enforcement agencies a whole dozen are selected. That is, in the presence of special working conditions, the order, terms and types may change. Do not forget about the order of the employer on the application of disciplinary action, because if it is not, then the misconduct is not counted, and a person can appeal (for example, dismissal) in the competent structures. And often this results not only in the annulment of the decision, but also in the payment of fines, as well as wages for the entire time that a person has not worked.

Separately, it is worth recalling the role of trade unions, which are vested with the right to monitor compliance with existing labor laws. They can act as an initiator for disciplinary action against the management, their deputies and administrative structures. This is specified in the second part of Article 195 of the Labor Code. At the same time, close cooperation in this matter is legislatively provided. The employer has the right to impose disciplinary sanctions up to dismissal. He informs the applicant about his decision (professional committee).

About the features of the legal process

Despite a fairly broad consideration, the Labor Code does not detail the procedure. This often leads to a violation of labor freedoms and employee rights. Therefore, disciplinary proceedings must be considered precisely as a legal relationship. In it, the main actors are the employer and employee. Content - rights and obligations of the parties. Moreover, it so happened that the legislation basically fixes the legal status of the employer. Although you should not think that the employee is cut back in rights.

For example, you can not sign the order (order) of the employer on the application of disciplinary action. This action automatically puts the employee in opposition and disagreement, which strengthens his position in the labor dispute. It should also be noted that this fact: the employee acts as a full-fledged (within the framework of disciplinary proceedings) subject of relations. In other words, he has the right to familiarize himself with the materials accusing him of undesirable labor behavior, to form and submit his assessment of the information provided, to demand the collection of new data. In some cases, he may demand an audit, initiate an audit of financial and economic activities and even attract auditors if this helps to resolve the issue of his innocence.So, you can use the services of specialists provided by the union.

The need to improve legislation

First of all, it is necessary to mention the specification of disciplinary proceedings. To do this, you can use the by-laws and local regulations. Similar practice and need is characteristic, as an example, to budget organizations. Various departments and ministries are working on the development and approval of the procedure for conducting an internal audit, and, if necessary, with subsequent disciplinary action. The regulatory legal acts have a detailed procedure, which stipulates the composition of the commission, the authority, how to draw up the results of the audit. At the same time, a number of elements that are characteristic for a certain stage are highlighted.

It must be borne in mind that elementary legal relationships are discrete. In other words, they consist of certain parts, and they are interrupted in time. For example, the right of an employee to familiarize himself with the documentation and appeal against the actions of the disciplinary commission is connected with the obligations of the employer to provide all the information requested and consider complaints. All this can be at any stage. At the same time, such facts do not exclude the systemic nature of the process, as well as the unity of the rights and obligations of its participants.

Universal circuit

Let's look at a generalizing and comprehensive application at the same time. For convenience, we break the scheme at the stage:

• First stage. Initially, the management receives an offer to the employee to give a written explanation of the circumstances that indicate a violation of the established internal routine of the organizational structure. If a refusal is received, then after two working days, an act on this should be drawn up. This document contains such details: place and date, full name and the position (of the employee and the person involved in it), a brief description of the alleged violation of discipline, a proposal to explain and non-receipt of consent to it, an explanation of what exactly is the misconduct.
• Second phase. The employer (as an option, its plenipotentiary representative such as the head of the personnel department, deputy director for personnel) receives from the immediate head of the worker of interest all the necessary documents that confirm a violation of discipline. In addition, his opinion is requested on the selection of a certain disciplinary sanction, which is necessary in the circumstances.

Evaluation and processing of data

The following steps look like this:

• The third stage. The materials that were collected during the investigation of the violation are evaluated. Based on them, a decision is made whether the employee is guilty of a disciplinary offense.
• The fourth stage. Before an employer orders a disciplinary action against an employee, a decision must be made on the severity of the misconduct, as well as mitigating circumstances.
• The fifth stage. At this stage, the employer exercises the right provided for in the first part of Article 192 of the Labor Code, namely, the application to the violator of the internal labor schedule of a disciplinary measure or restrictions by other means of influence. The effectiveness of the actions taken largely depends on this stage. Therefore, to reduce its essence exclusively to punishment is unjustified both from a theoretical and practical point of view. The most important thing is the educational influence. He is influenced by the personality of the employee, and the level of his professional training, as well as legal and moral culture. This is a complex and responsible process, and underestimate it is to prepare the way for the future problems of the employer. So, sometimes a conversation with the leader is enough.And it may be such that the process will lead to confrontation not only with the employee, but also with the primary production team.

Process completion and selected technical points

And the last stage:

• Sixth stage. The resulting documentation is prepared and announced. For example, an employer’s order to apply a disciplinary sanction is announced to the whole team or to only one employee, which contains information about his misconduct and punishment. After that, he has three days to sign from the date of publication. If an employee refuses to get acquainted with him, then in accordance with the sixth part of Article 193 of the Labor Code, an act is drawn up. His details are similar to the document considered in the first stage.

Speaking about which disciplinary sanctions the employer has the right to apply and the procedure for their implementation, two points cannot be ignored:

1. Appeal to the competent authorities.
2. Early termination of punishment.

Summarizing

So it was examined what disciplinary sanctions the employer has the right to apply. The list of punishments that are allowed to apply, in most cases, is limited to three options.

Therefore, speaking about which disciplinary action the employer is not entitled to apply, it is enough to simply refer to labor legislation. Although one should not forget that if a special activity is carried out (for example, in the law enforcement structure), the list is expanding. For all other cases, the employer has the right to apply the following disciplinary sanctions:

1. Comment.
2. Rebuke.
3. Dismissal.

Fines, compensation, additional workload - all these are not disciplinary sanctions, therefore it is impossible to impose them under this guise, because this is considered an illegal action.