3 Phase Employee Counseling Process

Everyone knows that a great way to reduce the amount of employee counseling notices that you might need to do starts with the hiring process, if your interview skills aren’t up to par you could very well end up hiring the wrong person for the job. If you are a new manager or even a new small business owner I would suggest reading “10 Tips to Hiring Employees that Don’t Suck“, it might help you avoid even using the 3 Phase Employee Counseling Process that I put together below.

I was first introduced to the 3 phase counseling process when I worked for Home Depot about 20 years ago when I first was hired on, sadly I learned about the process from the crappy employee side of things. I will never forget that first experience of being called into a an office where this girl “Jennifer” the front end manager layed the smackdown on me for getting hammered and leaving my car parked right in front of the entrance doors the night before, it was still parked there after the store opened.

I found the whole thing pretty funny to be totally honest with you and my experience with Jennifer was hardly a game changer for me, it’s not as if I got smashed and parked in front of the doors EVERY night. I really had no reason to be concerned with the 3 phase counseling process at that point because I knew I wouldn’t be stupid enough to do it again, the same can’t be said for many employees in the work field.

The 3 phase process is meant to do a few things and they are all things that I feel are important. Proper employee counseling should ultimately end with the issue being resolved and no further counseling being necessary, this of course is not always the case which is exactly why there is a 3 phase process.

This process offers a good associate a second chance as opposed to hiring and terminating people the minute they make a  mistake, that can become costly and quick. Following a counseling process like the one below will also reduce wrongful terminations within your business.

Phase I: Verbal Counseling

Verbal counseling is any counseling that takes place in the form of a verbal discussion, a verbal counseling session should be documented as such and placed in the employee’s file. Placing the verbal documentation in an associates file keeps communication between managers consistent in the event there is a need to move into the Written Notice phase this documentation will come in handy.

Phase II: Written Notice

Once an employee has been verbally informed of an issue and the verbal documentation has been placed into the associates file it leaves the door open for a Written Notice in the event that the associate repeats the same action that earned them the verbal documentation in the first place.

This phase requires that you sit down with the associate and present the written documentation, it also requires the associate to sign the document stating that they have been made aware of the contents of the documentation. This documentation should include the date and details of the previous infraction that resulted in the verbal documentation, this shows consistency in the documentation process as well as in the employees actions.

Phase III: Final Warning

At this point in the game it’s safe to say that the associate knows about their previous documentations and what actions caused those documentations, at this point the associate needs to walk away with a clear understanding that repeating the same action will now result in immediate termination without further warning.

I was known for putting the following in the gameplan section of the documentations that I did:

Another infraction of this sort will result in immediate termination without further verbal notification or written documentation.

If that line doesn’t make it clear that we won’t be sitting down again to discuss the same issues as before, than chances are nothing will.

If there were a next phase in this process it would be the termination phase, it is safe to say that any associate that doesn’t “get it” after the third counseling process probably won’t get it after a forth or fifth counseling session. Sooner or later it’s probably best for both parties to move in separate directions.

If you found this helpful or would like to add anything to the subject please feel free to leave a comment, I would love to hear your feedback . Take a quick second to subscribe to my rss feed, subscribing will keep you informed of  the latest posts coming through my blog.

Tagged as: business tips, employee counseling, how to, new manager tips, small business