We asked “How do you handle sleeping on duty?”

In the survey, we gave a scenario where the attendant was sleeping on duty and “refused” to assist a customer when called by the security guard.

Here are the results:

• 35% of you recommended that the employee receive a Warning Letter
• 45% of you recommended that the employee should be given a Final Written Warning for the first offence and a Disciplinary Hearing for the second offence
• 20% of you recommended that the employee receive notice of a Disciplinary hearing

Whatever your code of conduct stipulates at your site, keep the following in mind:

• Disciplinary steps should be applied fairly and consistently; that’s where your Code of Conduct comes in. It provides a point of reference for your disciplinary process.
• When giving an employee a warning letter, you should make the employee aware of the possible consequences of another transgression. I.e. what will happen if the employee does it again. Sometimes, we give the warning letter, but forget to “warn” the employee and making sure the employee understands.
• Every transgression will have mitigating and aggravating circumstances which may affect the final sanction. Make sure that the employee understands this. E.g. in the sleeping on duty example we noted, the employee refuses to help the customer. Obviously that is an aggravating circumstance which will require a more serious sanction from the company than if the employee had apologized and immediately gone to help the customer.