Improve Your Policy Violation Documentation With HR Automation

Workplace policy violations range from minor infractions to serious issues, but there’s one thing they all have in common — you need to document them. Documentation is key to enforcing disciplinary measures, ensuring a productive work environment, and reducing your legal liabilities under employment law. 

But what does policy violation documentation entail, and how can you get to the root cause of employee disciplinary issues? Here’s how to take a proactive approach to policy breaches and create effective policy violation documentation in real time.

What Is Policy Violation Documentation?

Policy violation documentation is the record you keep of any disciplinary action you take against an employee. This could include a written warning, a disciplinary action form, or a digital record that covers the date, location, and details of the violation. It should also highlight any corrective action you expect the employee to take to remedy the issue.

The purpose of policy violation documentation is to address employee behavior in the present and to preserve information that might otherwise be forgotten, so it’s available to your human resources team or other stakeholders in the future.

Examples of Policy Violations

Policy violations differ from more general performance issues. They aren’t just about unwanted behavior. Rather, they breach a specific policy. This might include:

• Dress code: If your dress code requires a uniform or a degree of formality, then inappropriate dress could count as a policy violation.
• Attendance policy: An attendance policy spells out how late an employee can be before they’re considered tardy or absent without notice.
• Confidentiality policy: An employee who shares proprietary information with a friend or on social media could be in breach of your confidentiality policy.
• Remote work policy: Your remote work policy details which team members can work from home and how often.
• Safety policy: An employee who doesn’t follow protocols may be in breach of your workplace safety policy.

Some policy violations can be addressed with clear communication and regular training, while others may call for progressive disciplinary action. Serious cases of misconduct, such as theft or sexual harassment, may result in immediate termination.

Why Is Policy Violation Documentation Important?

Documenting policy violations may seem less important than other business processes, but it’s key to maintaining a positive work environment and reducing your organization’s exposure to legal issues. Here are three ways it can make a difference.

1. Shows Good Faith

Following a consistent disciplinary policy improves employee retention by establishing an open dialogue with an employee rather than firing them immediately. It also helps to avoid potential conflicts of interest because managers have to explain or justify their actions and are less likely to penalize employees arbitrarily.

2. Establishes a Timeline

The disciplinary action process often involves several steps, such as a verbal warning, written warning, and suspension. Effective documentation establishes a timeline so you know how much time has elapsed between each step or between repeated violations. This can be especially important if an employee sues you for wrongful termination.

3. Holds Employees Accountable

Employees who only receive a verbal warning about a policy violation may neglect to take it seriously or even forget that they were disciplined at all. Clear policy violation documentation puts into writing any further action you want them to take and the potential consequences if they don’t comply.

How to Improve Your Policy Violation Documentation

No matter which type of disciplinary process you follow, having the right documentation process streamlines your workflows and improves decision-making. Follow these best practices to improve your policy violation documentation.

Develop Clear Company Policies

In order to properly identify and address policy violations, you need to clearly define your expectations as an employer. If you don’t have a remote work policy, for example, then you won’t have guidelines to point to when one of your employees is allowed to work from home and another isn’t.

Cover all of your policies as part of your onboarding checklist, and inform employees when a policy changes so they aren’t caught by surprise.

Create Standardized Templates

Use an HR automation platform like Pulpstream to create standardized forms that you can use for different types of policy violations. By working from consistent templates, you can ensure that each manager captures the same information when they file a disciplinary action report.

Pulpstream can even help you generate those reports with customizable disciplinary workflows that automate the process from start to finish.

Use Email and SMS Notifications

Don’t rely on physical documentation to record policy violations. Use a cloud-based platform to track violations digitally and deliver notifications directly to an employee’s phone or inbox. Pulpstream’s mobile app and built-in notification tools allow you to inform employees right away whenever there’s an update on their case.

This digital paper trail ensures that updates are delivered in a timely manner and in a way that employees are most likely to receive and act upon.

How Pulpstream Supports Documentation

Pulpstream’s intuitive, cloud-based platform supports documentation for a wide range of employee processes and issues — not just policy violations. You can use it to generate forms, track performance metrics, conduct workplace investigations, and more. Here are just a few of the ways it supports policy violation documentation.

Time-Stamped Logs

Establishing a timeline is one of the most important parts of documentation. Pulpstream makes it easy to log incidents, interview witnesses, upload supporting documents, and more. Get a 360-degree view of every case and ensure that each event is tracked from start to finish with integrated dashboards and reports.

Time-stamped logs remove any doubt about when a policy violation was documented, while cloud-based storage improves security and document retention.

Access Controls

Policy violation documentation may include confidential information that should only be accessed by authorized members of your HR team. Pulpstream’s role-based access controls allow you to keep policy violations safe from prying eyes, while also making it available to those who need it. Authorized users can access documentation from their desktop or mobile device via a cloud-based portal.

Audit Trails

If you face legal action from an employee for discrimination or retaliation, you’ll need to look back at your policy violation documentation to find out what went wrong. Did you document all of the steps you took before terminating the employee?

Pulpstream’s built-in audit trails should give you confidence that you’ve done your due diligence and nothing was overlooked. You can easily track who reported a policy violation, when, and whether the employee had an opportunity to address it.

Track and Manage Policy Violations With Pulpstream

Policy violation documentation creates a record of disciplinary action that protects both employers and employees. Employees get the opportunity to review and correct their mistakes, while employers have a paper trail that protects them from legal liability.

Effective policy violation documentation should establish a timeline of the incident and capture all the details of the violation. Use an HR platform like Pulpstream to create a standardized workflow that managers can follow to ensure fairness and consistency.

Pulpstream’s digitized workflows support disciplinary action, performance improvement, and other employee relations issues. Our cloud-based portal maintains a time-stamped log of every incident, while email and SMS notifications keep stakeholders informed.

Request a demo today to see how it can help your team!