I’m a regular reader of Not Always Rightand its various categories. I’ve never worked retail or food service, so I’m not personally familiar with the practice of being written up. I assume it has to do with an entry going into one’s personnel record as justification for firing if it’s repeated, so the company can cover its corporate ass.
Is there more to it? Does the policy vary much among companies? Have you got any stories you can share about being written up, involving you or someone else? You don’t have to confess or anything - we all know that your idiot coworker was the guilty party. Ever work some place that had ridiculous guidelines for getting written up? Have you ever had to write someone up?
A variation of such is the “performance improvement plan”. Most of the people I have worked with have been written up at least once. Someone I know involved in the transit union in New York told me that the average employee gets three write ups per year. AFAIK these write up policies are standard for large companies and pretty much the standard for any union based employment. From what I have read it is pretty common it tech also - so I have never thought of it as a practice specific to unskilled labor. One of the managers I used to work under got written up several times, so it’s just the standard way to handle disciplinary issues where I work, regardless of bargaining unit status. I’m actually pretty surprised that someone would be unfamiliar with this; the only places I’ve ever seen not use this disciplinary approach are very tiny s-corp or sole prop type of businesses - any place I’ve ever seen or worked for that has a HR department uses this.
It’s officially called “performance evaluation” or something to that effect as Mr. Nylock explained. You can get it for any number of reasons – being late for your shift more than X times in a given period, for example. Or behavior not conducive to the business. Chronic inability to complete your work. There are many, many more.
I’ve found that they’re more common in so-called blue collar work than, say, in an office environment, no doubt because a lot such work involves production, and if those production goals aren’t met, fingers need to be pointed at someone or someones. There’s also the fact that some people, for whatever reason, are simply not cut out for such work. The “performance evaluation” is then used to weed them out.
The minor infractions go into the employee’s file at the department level. It’s intended for the dept head’s use only.
Repeat offenders or more serious infractions get a copy of the letter of reprimand sent to the employee file in HR.
The distinction is important. The HR file is permanent and can be used for later job reference inquiries. The HR file is a full record of your employment that also includes salary history, promotions and commendations.
Coming in late is the most common infraction. Most Dept heads will wait until the third write up before forwarding a copy to HR for the employee’s permanent file.
In companies where I have been in management, being “written up” was always viewed as more of an opportunity to counsel the employee. It usually wasn’t meant as a form of punishment.
For example, I might have an employee who is working on a construction job site and fails to wear eye protection when using a drill. I might warn him/her verbally, but then I see him/her doing it again. I then write him/her up by citing the incident, stating that he/she received a verbal warning, referencing the company safety policy, and warning him/her that failing to correct his/her actions in the future might lead to disciplinary action or termination. I also give him/her the opportunity to respond to the warning in writing. Everything goes into the personnel file.
Writing someone up is very important for a variety of reasons. It is, as mentioned in another post, a requirement in many union contracts. But it is also (in my example) a way to demonstrate that the company was not overlooking safety issues. If someone suffers an eye injury, it is helpful for the investigator to see that we have vigorously enforced our safety policies.
Maybe I spent my career in a bubble. I was military/Fed employee for 37 years - I know that military folks can be written up for offenses, but I never knew anyone who had been, nor did I ever have to do it myself. And as a civilian employee working in engineering, I never encountered it.
In one organization where we all had Top Secret clearances, I know of someone who was fired for something, but being written up never entered into it. He was caught doing something he shouldn’t, and then he was gone. And since retiring, I’ve had 2 temp jobs and 2 regular jobs, all in engineering-related fields, and again, I’ve never heard of anyone being written up.
Maybe I just hung out with goody-goody types all the time. Or maybe no one ever talked about transgressions around me.
Oral warnings from the Supervisor are usually sufficient where I work.
The written warnings are only used after repeated offenses.
Many employees never get a written warning. They come into work on time, keep their office reasonably neat, and turn in assignments on time.
It really varies on the Dept Head. I know of one guy that had a bug up his ass about clean desktops. Every piece of paper and any files had to be in a drawer before the employee went home. Everyone in that Dept was thrilled went that a-hole found another job.
I can’t speak to today’s military, but in the 70s, getting drunk seemed to be a requirement in some commands. I got the feeling that write-up were only used against those who weren’t favorites - a tool to get rid of people who didn’t play the game the way the CO wanted it played. I’d like to think that things have changed, but old habits die slowly.
I worked blue collar in chemical plants for over 30 years. In both the union and non-union plants the disciplinary procedures were about identical. Usually started out with verbal warnings, two or three allowed. Next were the written warnings, many times only one or two allowed. Then unpaid time off, three days, then seven days. Finally termination. This was all written out in the employee handbook. I never saw anyone go through the entire progression. Usually several verbal warnings (btw the verbals were documented in the person’s personal file), then one or two written warnings, and out the door. The unpaid time off was rarely used. If you did something extremely unsafe or costly you could go straight to termination. The verbals and the written warnings usually didn’t count after a year with no repeats.
I got a written warning once when there was no way out. My supervisor came an told me to do something. I wasn’t unsafe but it was wrong since it would screw up the batch of product we were making. I argued with him, he was adamant that what he wanted to do was necessary to improve the batch. I did what I was told to do and just as I had said the batch was trashed. I was written up for malicious compliance. I knew what would happen and did it anyway. Of course if I refused I would be written up for insubordination. I pointed this out to the plant manager, it was a very expensive fuckup. His answer was I should have known better. This happened on a night shift so there was no one to gainsay the shift supervisor.
At a former job…we had 5 personal days and 5 sick days a year…I got the flu (from the boss, no less) and needed all the days plus 2 more…I got written up…Boss told me he had no choice,company policy. He wrote a note with the slip, so it never affected me at that job, as far as I could tell.
The military version of the “write up” that I’m familiar with is the Letter of Counseling, the lightest version of a series of documentation that runs through Letter of Admonishment and then to Letter of Reprimand.
I’ve written one or two LoCs in my AF career. Normal workflow is drafting, a counseling session with the subject member, and then filing the letter with the Orderly Room. I’ve actually “pocketed” the first LoC, filing it at my desk instead of forwarding it to Squadron, if I thought the counseling was likely to be effective and the troop didn’t need a ding on his unit-level record.
Never did an LoA or LoR myself. IME, those are the dressing on a Squadron-level discipline event short of Article 15 action.
At least in the Air Force, even military discipline was (15 years ago, at least) highly bureaucratic. :dubious:
I was written up once in a white-collar, professional job (computer programmer), for a really hysterically funny reason: whispering.
I shit you not.
It was a bizarrely toxic place with a manager that was a complete pussy. Things started out fine but got increasingly weird and unpleasant - after I got another job and got the hell out of there, I figured out that they needed to lay off someone but were too spineless to do it so were trying to make one of us quit. It worked, two of us (out of three) quit.
Now years later I do kind of enjoy bragging about being written up for whispering, though. I bet nobody else has ever achieved that!
I’ve barely been alive that long. Your post makes me wonder about the history of the HR practice of “writing people up”. I have read stories on Quora about Google’s processes, and they followed the PIP procedures with their engineers that I’ve seen everywhere else. I think for a while Microsoft was using stack ranking - but that proved unprofitable in the long run, so that method was abandoned a long time ago AFAIK. Some very new companies seem to be following an employee evaluation system that was originally championed by Netflix a few years ago that is too convoluted for me to explain. Interesting how these trends come and go.
I was a salesperson and pretty good I might add. I was making several multiples of minimum wage but the part timers who did make min wage were annoyed that I would not stop and take time to do their job stocking shelves.
I did make the store manager confirm in writing that he wanted me to stop selling high margin products and instead do min wage part time workers’ responsibilities.
I’ve been written up once at my current job. The reason given was “Aggressive body language” which supposedly made the other co-workers upset. What actually happened was in a “Town Hall” (division-wide meeting) when it came time for the Q&A session, I asked the Director, “Let’s talk about pay-for-performance. Our company pays lip-service to pay-for-performance, but the reality is, a person who gets an exemplary score on their review will get about .25% to .5% more than a person who “meets expectations”. For most hourly workers, that comes out to be about a Happy Meal per week more. Does it really incentivize people to do more than the bare minimum to get by?”
They couldn’t write me up for the question, because they said it was open to all questions. So they said I was standing aggressively. (I was leaning against a wall with my arms crossed.) I wrote a strong rebuttal on my part of the form.
An aside, but while “brownie points” today are small rewards (“atta boy!”) originally they were demerit points given by railroad companies to employees who broke a rule or misbehaved.
When I was in the Army, ’86-’91, monthly Counseling was the norm; it was more of a, “Here’s Where You Are At, Performance/Skill Level/Behavior Wise; Here’s Where You Need To Be,” kind of thing. But there were instances where a specific action or conduct was noted, whether it was good or bad; we were firmly encouraged to give written “attaboys!” for superior conduct/performance, much more so than for bad.
Those monthly counseling’s stayed “local,” at the Company/Troop level, but might get referenced for purposes of awards, promotions, or punishment at the Battalion/Squadron level, perhaps even Brigade/Regimental. Needless to say, the “attaboys” were good things to have in your file.
Mike, when I went into the Army, a non-injury/non-damage DUI would just get you a “Bad Dog! No Biscuit” verbal ass-chewing. That began to change in very short order, until, when I left in ’91, a first-offense DUI was a Field Grade Article 15 offense, and they threw the book at you, then picked it up, and threw it again.
A second offense was cause for separation, but only after they gave you another Field Grade Article 15.
Note that these were for non-injury/non-damage DUIs; basically getting caught in a random checkpoint. If you were in any kind of accident while under the influence, no matter how minor, that was it; you were toast. No question, no appeal, you were gone.
As far as civilian work-related stuff goes, IME that varies considerably by employer; and it seems to have also evolved over time due to changing “cultures” in various occupations and such.
At my current place of employment, we get monthly “One-on-One” counseling from our immediate Supervisors. It’s pretty benign, like the Military Monthlies I described above. However, if your Supervisor notices a “negative trend,” you might get admonished to start correcting that behavior pattern.
If you actually do something stupid (:raises hand:), or dangerous (safety), or outright wrong (drug/alcohol use on the job, physical violence, etc), then you’ll get an almost immediate write-up for that, possibly a suspension, maybe even fired outright if the offense is grave enough.
Ah, the ol’ Catch-22: do what your Supervisor says, even if it’s wrong, and you take a hit; don’t do what your Supervisor says, because it’s wrong, and you take a hit.
Ever work some place that had ridiculous guidelines for getting written up? Have you ever had to write someone up?