Documenting Discipline-Related Meetings - By Bob Gilson, FedSmith.com
I hate meetings. Most of my career I tried to avoid them if at all possible. I believe that gatherings the purported purpose of which is to share information frequently turn into someone’s opportunity to kiss up to the boss, tell everyone that they are important or otherwise waste time. If you are going to hold one, there are a couple of points to remember. Managers call meetings, everyone else requests them. Managers decide the agenda, who participates, how long it lasts and most important of all when it’s over.
Having said that some meetings are necessary and this article is about one of them. I’ll call it the “what the #@$& happened?” meeting. In this meeting you are going to deal with an allegation or appearance of misconduct by someone you supervise. These meetings are never easy but if structured and prepared properly can accomplish their goal with a minimum of pain. The goal – get the employee’s side of the story.