Screen Printing Forum

I was wondering if somebody has a employee discipline plan and if there are any procudures that anybody does if a employee makes numerous printing mistakes.

After training and passing skill test, 3 strikes and you're out. I know of shops that make employees pay for stupid mistakes out of payroll or resign.

I would make certain that they understand the process (proper training), then discipline should be progressive.
1. Oral warning
2. Counseling
3. written warning
4. 3 day suspension
5. Last chance agreement
6.Termination

This will steps I would use on all my epmloyees, thus keeping me from being sued.
Robert

Write a process down and stick to it. Everyone knows the score, no one can complain.

thanks for sharing this information.

I would use the policy:

1. Oral Warning
2. Written Warning
3. Termination

I use this policy with all my employees..

Just tossing my two cents into the ring here...

As someone with prior management experience, DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT any sort of correctional or disciplinary interactions with your employees. Those oral warnings still need to have a paper trail behind them to prove that they did in fact happen in the event of a lawsuit. Cover yourself, you never know who's going to suddenly decide they were mistreated during their employment.

My company followed the same policy as above:
1)Oral warning
2)Written warning
3)Termination

It's a violation of federal employment law to have an employee pay (monetarily) for their mistakes - this can result in a lawsuit, so I don't recommend that!

My attitude is this: Wages in the screen printing industry start out pretty low. You need to develop the employee, because you sure aren't likely to find a screen printing god for $10/hr and no benefits. Your job as an owner is to find a person who has the right ethics and attitude, and develop the skill in that person that you need out of them. If you just fire everyone who doesn't already know everything, you'll be miserable.

Start out by making sure you train the employees and communicate effectively what you expect. In my experience, most careless mistakes are made because the employee doesn't have their head in the game. They are thinking of what they did last night, what they are doing this weekend, or what another person in the shop is doing. By making the employee feel like a professional and a part of the team, you can help them to learn to take pride in the work they do and these types of mistakes begin to disappear.

If the problems are register or sequence based, have the employee bring you a sample pelon before they begin the job. Sign it with a sharpie, and tell them that this is where the register needs to stay, and if they can't keep it there themselves, they need to stop and get help instead of continuing. I worked in offset printing as a production manager for 20 years, and even our most experienced and skilled pressmen had to have a press check for every single job. Inevitably, pressmen will focus so much on a problem area they were fighting with, that something simple would get overlooked. A second set of eyes is cheap insurance.

I also implemented a pay bonus system. When an employee is helping you stay profitable, reward that by letting them share in the profit. I'd steer clear of anything that allows a bad employee to take a bonus away from a good one - in other words, nothing like "pizza party on Friday for the shop if we don't have any reprints" because that is counter productive for morale. Instead, I did a points based system where spoilage below certain levels earned a certain number of points, and above certain levels took away 2 or 3 times as many points. Cash bonuses were paid monthly to employees who had enough points. This was the cheapest, best policy we ever implemented. Suddenly, quality affects the employees finances directly, not just yours. Plus, some of our best pressmen received as much as $500 a month, which is an incredible morale boost and also gave the other employees something to strive for. It didn't actually *cost* the company anything, because the savings on reprints coupled with customer satisfaction offset this expense.

Of course, some people just don't want to be helped. In these cases, they have to go. As has been said, you need to document, document, document, and have the employee sign something stating that they understand they have received discipline and the situation has to change. This protects you from wrongful termination cases.

Every business should have an employee handbook, and there are services online that will provide one that meets your State requirements for $100-$200. Just google employee handbooks and you'll find plenty of services.