Cooks County Correction Department's Disciplinary Action Program - Report Example

Human Resource Disciplinary Action Program Cooks County Correction Department Sheriff’s Investigative Unit Faculty Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Mission Statement III. Discipline Policies i. Summary Punishment ii. Major Cause IV. Conclusion V. References I. Introduction Department of Correction is a large department which employs approximately 3,000 sworn and civilian staff. It has a 1998 operating budget of $151,515,232. This budget is excluding medical and facilities management. 1 The Correction department looks after the safety and security concerns of citizens of Cook County. This is one of the sensitive areas. The moment when people need helps the most they are most vulnerable. Due to this reason service of the service provider or who so ever is involved in the project or process should be efficient and within the good conduct area. This includes each and every division of the organization from front office to the operations. The appropriate conduct of the employees can be ensured by proper training and personnel development programs and disciplinary action policies. All of the human resource management components should go along with each other to ensure good work culture within the organization. This paper specifically deals with the Disciplinary action programs of Cooks County Correction Department Sheriff’s Investigative Unit. The first section explains the mission statement of the organization. The following section deals with the discipline policies where Summary Punishment and Major Cause of the organization have been discussed. II. Mission Statement The mission statement of Cook County Department of Corrections is as follows: The mission of the Cook County Department of Corrections is to ensure the safety of the citizens of Cook County, correctional staff and inmates; to provide a central location for the screening and classification of all defendants and a safe, secure, humane, positive, efficient and constitutionally-operated corrections department with a highly qualified, well-trained and dedicated staff.2 III. Discipline Policies The Disciplinary Action Program of Cooks County Correction Department is very important due to the kind of work it does. It works for security and safety of people and works within a stressed environment. This leaves no room for misconducts of the employees. There are strict rules and regulation in Sheriff’s Investigative Unit and set procedures for disciplinary actions and punishments. It has thoroughly described its policies related to punishment and various clauses in dept. The written document on Disciplinary actions has covered vastly the various misconducts with which an employee can breach the rules and regulations. i. Summary Punishment This document has explained the difference between the less serious misconduct and serious misconducts and the action to be taken on these cases. In the start of the paper it explained the purpose of the paper, which gives the reader or employee an idea about different sections like A, B, C and D. Section II defined the Summary Punishment as alternative to formal disciplinary procedure when conduct defined as a less serious misconduct is observed by or comes to attention of a department of a department supervisor. It has given various examples of misconducts which are less serious. It gives employees an idea about conducts which can fall under the category of less serious misconducts. It includes list of 19 misconduct example where things like taking excessive time for lunch, inattention to duty, absence without permission, misuse of department equipment and vehicles, use of loud and profane language and many others. The third section of the paper describes the limitations of Summary Punishments. It focused on the overall issues pertaining to the staff and summary punishments. Due to any reason important projects or work should not remained without staffed. Staff should get equal chance to improve them. This is the reason first they receive a written reprimand on their first offence. After this if the staff continues his/her act and does not improve him/her than they get suspended for one day from their work without pay on the second time of offence. On the third offence the staff gets suspended for three days without pay. Tardiness: In the case of Tardiness the rules are to give the first written reprimand for 3 tardies in consecutive 12 months. On the other hand a staff can get a day off without pay for 4 tardies in consecutive 12 months. 5 tardies may lead to 2 days off without pay while 6 tardies may lead to 3 days off without pay in 12 consecutive months. More than 6 tardies within any consecutive 12 months will result in major cause infraction. Any officer reporting 16 minutes late or more after the hour may send home without pay. Timepiece to measure tardiness across the organization will be standard. Medical Abuse: The minor medical abuse has been described in the next section. Here certain situations are given when it would be considered the case of summary punishment. In these conditions the applicable actions are given similar to those of tardiness. History of Repeated Summary Offences: Repeated offences or misconduct of any officer will be considered a case of major cause and will face disciplinary action against the officer. The actions recommended in the summary punishment shall bar recommendation of more severe punishment. Procedure of Summary Punishment: The procedure of the Summary punishment is simple and starts with the supervisor and the situation where Summary punishment deem appropriate. Supervisor fills up the form and reviews it with the affected member. After reviewing, signature of the affected member is required with the selection of three given options. The process is given in the diagram below. Summary Punishment Deemed appropriate Supervisor Complete the Summary Punishment Request Form Review of Summary Punishment action request form with affected member Signature of affected member with any of following option Figure: Flowchart of Summary Punishment Procedure Within the scope of Summary Punishment limitation at each level of review shall have authority to alter the recommendation. This enables the review team or supervisor to correct the direction of action. Member who refuses to accept the Summary Punishment can opt for hearing by the same chain of command. The Summary punishment recommendation can be altered or disapproved within the scope of its limitations at each level of review. The Hearing Board determination is final and binding for both the parties. Refusal of acceptance of Summary punishment, the member shall have to submit the Union grievance form within 15 calendar days. Failure of submission of this form shall be considered as acceptance of the Summary Punishment. The information regarding the Summary Punishment shall be forwarded to the payroll or personnel supervisor. There are procedures of removal of the written reprimand or suspension of three days or less from work from the employee’s file after 18 months of occurrence given that s/he does not receive any more written reprimand or suspension within this duration of time. In such cases than again it will be removed only after 18 months of the occurrence of the last reprimand or suspension order. ii. Major Cause The policy is applicable to all the correction officers working under jurisdiction of the Sheriff of Cooks County. Major causes have a purpose which is defined as “to provide a mechanism whereby disciplinary action will be initiated in a series of progressive steps depending upon the severity of rules infraction.” All the employees in the County are expected to follow the rules, general and specific orders and have acceptable behavioral conduct. Any employee failing to do so comes within the periphery of disciplinary action. Disciplinary action for the Major causes has been divided into 5 main categories. Grounds of Disciplinary Actions Attendance Insubordination Unsatisfactory Misconduct on Job certain instances Problems Work of misconduct Performance off the job The instances considered as a ground of disciplinary actions off duty are only that which significantly impact the performance of employee, operations of the organization or brings disrepute to the organization. The disciplinary actions are not a tool of punishment rather these are the tool by which organization tries to correct the behavior of the employees. Working in the same directions it follows the corrective steps which can take time to correct the employee’s misconduct or behavior. Disciplinary actions start with the written reprimand to the concerned employee. The next step is to suspend the employee from his/her work for few days and the final step is to discharge the employee from his/her work and responsibility. The document states the disciplinary action need not to be progressive. It has listed example of 16 such situations which is considered as a major cause infractions. It includes issues like negligence leading to escape, embezzlement or theft of detainee, employee or County, willful destruction of property, major act of insubordination, sleeping on duty verified by more than one person, more than six tardiness in any consecutive 12 months, inmate, employee or visitor abuse and many other. Sick Time The paper has also mentioned the sick time abuse by the employees and how seriously County considered this issue. Sick time shall neither be used for holidays or day off with pay. Union can be supportive for such scenario to the employers if employer informs union about the employees under the suspicion of abusing sick time and may conduct counseling for them. Misuse and abuse of medical time or dock time is not acceptable by the organization. Management will take care of that the affected member not gets embarrassed or any such reprimand action is not disclosed in front of inmates etc. The degree or level of infraction will be based on the consideration of the documentation of employees past record, warnings and counseling given to the employee, duration of service, seriousness and circumstances of the refraction, County or Sheriff’s office practice on the similar case and motives behind violations of rules. Appeal Procedure: Disciplinary actions are subject to the grievance procedures. The union considerations are also taken care off for the suspension of any employee. Disciplinary Action Form This form is completed for all the steps of the disciplinary action. It includes details like employees name, date of report, date and time of infraction, the infraction committed with a description and supervisors signature space. The immediate supervisor will discuss the disciplinary action and give the form of disciplinary action. The form is signed by immediate supervisor or the Sheriff’s designee and the employee. In the case where employee refuses to sign the place will be noted by supervisor and union steward. The copies of the form will be distributed among the employee, appropriate personnel office, steward, executive director, superintendent or unit supervisor and internal investigations. Suspension for 30 Calendar days or less: For the first serious infraction suspension for thirty days or less is given. This is given after the approval of Sheriff of designee. Suspension of more than 30 days: Suspension of more than 30 days or discharge shall be handled by the Merit Board Section in accordance with the state of Illinois Statutes. IV. Conclusion The clear division of misconduct and punishment criteria throws light on the importance given to the proper conduct. This is a sensible department which supports the living of people. Any shortcoming in service may lead to unfortunate events. Good service in any area of operations can be ensured only in a situation when the service providers are performing at their best levels. This can happen with proper human resource management policies. Employees should be taken care of and the policies regarding discipline and conduct should be clear. Employees should follow the acceptable rules and regulations and give their best performances for the purpose of their jobs. Human resource disciplinary action programs are aimed to ensure appropriate conduct of employees and gradually change their misconduct to right behavior. The organization has clearly defined two set of issues; Summary Punishment and Major Causes. Summary Punishments are for the less serious misconducts. These have been listed and the small punishments with considerable impacts have been listed. These summary punishments have there limitations and at each and every punishment the employee is reviewed with his/her superior. Employee is given written warning at first instance and later on gradually the punishment increases to suspension of one to six days for various misconducts. The punishments have been based upon type of misconducts as well. Major causes include serious misconducts which have been categorized in five broad categories. The actions taken for this criterion includes written reprimand, suspension and discharge. At each decision level the employee and immediate supervisor becomes part of review. The basic aim of disciplinary actions is to change the behavior or misconduct of an employee to the appropriate behavior. The policies are clear and concise. The procedures, limitations and action to be taken are given clearly for each set of policy and their subsets. Employee can easily understand the language and flow of the disciplinary action program. Including charts and flow diagram can make it easy for the employees to further understand these policies quickly and better. The past records can be checked and the areas where people make most of the mistakes or misconduct can be identified and during the training period for the new employees as well as the old these areas can be given special emphasis while explaining the disciplinary actions. To ensure that employees have understood the human resource disciplinary action a test followed by each training period should be conducted. Employees with best conducts or no summary punishment or major clause should be identified and appreciated to encourage others to follow the same. References: http://www.cookcountysheriff.org/doc/html/about.html accessed on 5 August 2006. Paper of policies of disciplinary Action Programs of Cooks County Correction Department, Sheriff’s Investigative Unit Read More