Most managers and supervisors despise doing conventional performance evaluations nearly as much as they despise initiating disciplinary action. Disciplinary action is disliked by employees even more than it is disliked by managers.
If everyone despises disciplinary action so much, why have disciplinary processes become so common in today’s workplaces?
Why is it that a large portion of most employee handbooks is dedicated to laying out potential offenses and the consequences that wayward workers may anticipate at work? The answers to these questions are as complicated and complex as any other inquiry concerning humans.
Why is a Disciplinary Action Framework Required?
One reason companies may wish to treat workers consistently and equitably is our litigious culture. You may also look at how many families raise their children.
A search on the internet for the terms self-discipline yielded a wealth of information on how parents may train their children to be self-disciplined. There are also plenty of articles on how to properly apply progressive punishment procedures.
If you worked as a social or cultural historian, you might track the rise of the gimme society, in which many individuals believe that life owes them a livelihood for very little effort. But, you know what? You won’t be able to use much of this analysis to manage the work of the employees in your company.
Solution? Self-disciplined Work Environment
The question is considerably more straightforward. You can’t change the past, and you can’t change the settings in which your workers were reared as an employer. You do not influence the work settings where they acquired the skills, expertise, and work ethic that they bring to your company.
What do you have control over? You may encourage your employees to acquire and practice self-discipline by creating a work environment and supervising interactions that promote it. This may be accomplished by cultivating a culture that encourages self-discipline.
The need for supervisory involvement, or externally imposed discipline, is reduced when individuals exercise self-discipline. Supervisors get to spend their time doing things they enjoy: encouraging, developing, and creating relationships. The following suggestions can assist you in creating a self-discipline-friendly atmosphere.
How to Create a Self-Disciplined Work Environment
Make it clear what you anticipate. People must be clear about what is expected of them. Let them know you want to see continual progress, initiative, and problem-solving. Present a basic job description that is instructive but not exhaustive to allow some flexibility.
Additionally, spend time with new workers discussing what matters to you and your company. It’s money well spent.
Encourage initiative and self-discipline when you see them in action. Praise the person, encourage, and ensure that the concept or procedure is carried through. Tell the individual how much you appreciate their efforts and how much you hope they continue. Reward the person in ways that are meaningful to them.
Consider alternatives such as more salary, time off, more time and attention from your boss, a special task, a committee leadership position, or training and personal growth.
Treat your employees like grownups, because that is exactly what they are. Consider how you would want to be treated as an adult. They want just the policies that are required to guarantee an orderly, fair, and consistent work environment. They want to be involved in every decision that affects them or their job.
They expect to be handled with dignity. They demand more from their jobs than simply a salary. Work fulfills social needs by allowing individuals to feel as though they are contributing to something bigger than themselves.
When people think about coming to work, they like to smile; the greatest workplaces encourage individual and collective achievement while also boosting employee self-esteem.
Provide enough training, particularly for new workers or when introducing a new work procedure. Provide problem-solving and process-improvement training so that employees have the skills they need to help with continuous improvement.
All rules and procedures should be accessible to all workers. Before adopting a new policy, get employee feedback. Hold focus groups to see how employees respond to possible new policies.
In staff or team meetings, discuss the new policies. Allow time for discussion and questions. Then, as much as feasible, implement rules uniformly.
Make your workplace a welcoming environment for employees to test out innovative ideas. Make every effort to guarantee that when a well-thought-out concept fails to function as intended, individuals are not “punished.” Provide employees with a budget to spend on innovative methods of working.
Make it a habit to meet with your coworkers regularly. Regularly go around your workspace.
Encourage open communication between you and your subordinates. Communicate all accessible facts about your company, its customers, its profitability, and its purpose and vision.
Share the organization’s long-term objectives. The more individuals who are aware, the more they will be able to act independently to assist you.
Because work is inhabited by humans, there will be times when employees do not exercise self-discipline. In these situations, deal with the problem behavior right away. Seeing improper job conduct go unpunished affects the morale of your contributing workers faster than almost anything else.
