Memo. The essence of the document and the rules for its preparation

In the production environment, a situation often arises when one of the employees decides to convey this or that information to his management. Such an appeal, set out in writing, is called a “memorandum”. What is this document and how to compile it? This is worth talking about separately.

Basic concepts

Any employee has the right to contact his immediate supervisor. He can do this both orally and in writing. In the first case, it all comes down to a normal conversation, which does not oblige each of the parties to anything. In the second, the appeal is already official.

Such a business paper is called a “memo”. What is the difference between such a document and other statements addressed to management? The essence of the question lies in its very name. An employee draws up such paper in order to report on a specific situation or event. Information may relate to an individual, site or production as a whole. Depending on who it is sent to, the memo can relate to both internal and external documents. The first option is when the employee addresses the head of any level within the given enterprise. And the second is obtained if he sends his paper to a higher authority. Then, naturally, he goes to the external level.

The essence of the problem

As a rule, a memorandum is drawn up for a specific purpose. It can be written in order to:

1. Correct the situation. For example, an employee has facts that the company takes actions that interfere with the normal course of the work process. He informs his management about this with a request to take appropriate measures.
2. Protect yourself from injustice. This happens when a person, seeing a biased attitude, decides to notify his immediate leadership about it. He does this in search of help and protection.
3. Improve work. Sometimes one of the employees notices that employees of other departments or structural units make mistakes that lead to reduced efficiency. Then he turns to the leader to help restore order.
4. Avoid unwanted liability. This happens when an incident occurs. Having told his superiors about him, the employee creates favorable conditions for himself when no complaints can be brought against him.

In each of these cases, the employee does not just convey information, but asks for assistance in solving the problem.

Fair punishment

Labor discipline provides for the conscientious performance by a citizen of his duties while he is at the workplace. In addition, he must comply with the accepted order and comply with all orders and orders of his employer. But in life, not everything happens so smoothly. Sometimes the actions of employees diverge from generally accepted norms. In this case, the immediate bosses consider it their duty to inform the management of the enterprise about what is happening. The result of such a signal is a memorandum of violation of labor discipline.

Usually in this document, the case concerns:

1. Failure to comply with any specific orders.
2. Failure to perform direct functions regarding the position of the offender.
3. Violations of labor discipline. This refers to cases of absenteeism, being late, being drunk at your workplace, and others.
4. Committing unlawful acts that involve administrative or criminal liability. In this case we are talking about theft, spoilage, embezzlement and other offenses.

In each of these cases, the perpetrator will have to bear the deserved punishment.

Document Author

Most often, a memorandum on an employee is drawn up by his immediate superior. In it, he conveys to the leadership the negative aspects of the activities of his subordinate.

At the same time, the document usually contains a personal assessment of the author. Together with his vision of the problem, he offers possible solutions. But the last word, of course, will be for the leader. For example, an employee made a truant. In this case, his boss draws up a document addressed to the director, which usually begins with the words “I bring to your attention”. Then he describes in detail when the violation occurred, and for his part offers the option of punishing a negligent employee. Since such a note refers to documents of internal use, it can be issued on an ordinary blank sheet of A4 format. The text is presented in arbitrary form. It can conditionally be divided into two parts. One contains a description of the problem, and the other includes conclusions and concrete suggestions made about this.

Special case of violation

One of the types of violation of labor discipline is the employee’s non-fulfillment of the task assigned to him by the head. This can happen if the employee forgot, could not or simply ignored this order.

Such an action qualifies as a violation of discipline, and the immediate supervisor draws up a memorandum of non-fulfillment of the assignment. For such an offense, a person will have to be justly punished. But this will happen only after he provides his explanations regarding what happened. If the reasons that prompted the employee to such actions seem convincing, then he may even avoid punishment. It is more difficult to resolve the issue when disobedience of the employee leads to negative consequences. Here he is unlikely to be able to stay away. Especially if as a result of such omission damage was caused or serious harm was done. The punishment in this case will be determined on the basis of the relevant regulatory acts.

How to make a report?

A manager at any level should know how to write a memo. A sample can be considered with a specific example. Suppose that some employee did not come on time to work, and at that time a visitor was waiting for him there to sign an important contract. After a few hours, the employee nevertheless appeared, but time was lost, and the client had already left. Such an act contains several violations at the same time:

• late for work;
• disruption of an appointment;
• damage caused to the company by non-signing of the contract.

If it is not possible to change the current situation, then the boss is obliged to inform the management about this.

A similar document should look like this:

1. First, in the upper right corner is written "cap", which indicates to whom and from whom it is directed.
2. Further in the center is written its name.
3. Below is the main text in which information is placed in a specific order. First comes a description of the situation. Then a request follows to help sort it out. After that, a conclusion is made on the basis of all the above. In conclusion, the author can express his ideas or suggestions on how best, in his opinion, to get out of this situation.
4. At the very bottom, he puts the date and signature with the full transcript of F. I. O. and the position held.

Depending on the reason, the text of the note may be purely informative or require the intervention of management to restore order.