Hr Disciplinary Procedure

---
name: hr-disciplinary-procedure
description: Writes a standing Disciplinary Procedure with the fair steps from establishing facts to appeal, the warning levels and how long each stays live, suspension as a last resort, and the rule for who may accompany the employee. Use for "run hr-disciplinary-procedure", "disciplinary procedure", "disciplinary policy", "write our disciplinary process", "progressive discipline steps", "warning levels", "can an employee bring a lawyer to a disciplinary", "suspension policy", part of the AI for HR Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Disciplinary Procedure

## When To Use
A disciplinary meeting went wrong on documentation and you need the steps written before the next one. Maybe the employee arrived with a companion nobody expected, or the timeline of letters did not hold up. This answers: what are our steps, who does each one, and what gets written down at each stage.

## When Not To Use
This is the standing procedure, not a live case. For the letters in a case, use Written Warning; for a complaint an employee raises, use Grievance Procedure; for a capability gap that coaching has not closed, start with Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).

## Inputs
- Your current procedure or handbook section, if any, and the country (and state or province) where people work
- Who in your organisation can investigate, hear and hear appeals
- Your live periods for warnings, if already set
If you have none of this, I start from the six steps with every role and period as a [placeholder] and mark the output as a first draft.

## Approach
The steps follow the Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures and the Acas disciplinary procedure step by step (acas.org.uk/disciplinary-procedure-step-by-step). The Code is written for Great Britain; the steps travel, the legal tests do not, so every statutory point is flagged for an adviser in your country. The judgment: fairness sits in the separation of roles and in the paper trail, not in the sanction. The failure it prevents: the manager who investigated also chairs the hearing and decides the outcome, and the whole process falls on that one fact.

## Workflow
1. Ask three questions: where do your people work (country, and state or province where it matters); who can investigate, hear and hear appeals, so that three different people do; how long should each warning level stay live (you set the periods).
2. Write the six Acas steps in order: understand the options (informal first; capability through coaching and training first), follow a fair procedure, investigate, hold the hearing, decide the outcome, then the appeal.
3. Set out the outcome levels: no action; informal warning with a confidential record; first written warning; final written warning (or straight to final for serious misconduct); other action such as demotion (contract check, adviser question); dismissal for gross misconduct or after a final warning.
4. State what every written warning must contain: the issue, the change needed and by when, the consequence if not met, and how long it stays live.
5. Write the suspension rule: only after alternatives are considered, stated as not a sanction, reviewed on dates you set. The 2026 Acas draft Code limits it further; it is not yet in force, so confirm with a qualified adviser.
6. Write the companion rule: who may accompany (a statutory right in Great Britain, a policy choice elsewhere), and what happens if someone brings a lawyer (a policy and adviser question).
7. Close with records (what is written at each step, who keeps it) and the adviser questions for your country.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Disciplinary Procedure
**Applies in:** [country, region] **Owner:** [role] **Version:** [date]
## Steps
| Step | What happens | Who | In writing | Timescale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Informal first | [conversation, coaching] | [line manager] | [note] | [you set] |
| 3 Investigate | [facts established] | [investigator] | [report] | [you set] |
| 4 Hearing | [allegation, evidence, companion] | [hearer, not the investigator] | [invitation] | [notice] |
| 6 Appeal | [grounds, new hearing] | [appeal hearer, not involved before] | [outcome] | [you set] |
## Outcome levels
| Level | When used | Live for | Recorded where |
|---|---|---|---|
| [first written warning] | [trigger] | [you set] | [file] |
## Suspension and companions
[Suspension rule, review dates; who may accompany; lawyer rule]
## Adviser questions
- [Confirm with a qualified adviser for [country]: companion rights, suspension pay, dismissal rules]
## Decision
[Named person, role] approves this procedure by [date]; it takes effect on [date].
```

## Done When
- All six steps are present with a named role and a written record for each
- Investigator, hearer and appeal hearer are three different roles
- Every warning level has a live period you set, or a [placeholder]
- Every statutory point is marked for a qualified adviser in the named country

## Quality Bar
- Procedure only: no case content, no names of employees, no example that reads as a real case
- Never state the law as settled; the Acas draft Code is described as a draft
- Suspension is never written as a sanction or a default
- No invented timescales; Acas says without unreasonable delay, and you set the days
- Claude writes the process, never the verdict: it never screens, ranks, scores or reads people, a named person decides and signs every decision about someone, and every legal point goes to a qualified adviser for the country it concerns.

## Next
Run hr-written-warning (Written Warning) to draft the letters the procedure calls for.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).