Disciplinary Case

The header is the incident and the decision. The lines are the steps that were followed to get there: the show cause notice, the employee's reply, the enquiry, the hearing, the decision, the appeal. A dismissal that cannot produce those dates is the one that gets reversed, which is why the steps are recorded separately from the outcome.

Where

People Directory › Disciplinary Case

Who uses it

HR, with the line manager, for each case

When

As soon as the incident is reported, and then at each step

Needs first

Employee Basic Information

What it is for

A disciplinary matter is defensible or it is not, and what makes it defensible is the process, in order, with dates. This screen records the process as it happens, not as a summary written afterwards.

The header holds what happened, how serious it was, and what the company decided. The lines hold the procedure. Each line is one step with its date and the person who ran it, and no step can be dated before the incident it concerns. That stops a case file being tidied up into something that could not have happened.

The screen also carries the consequences that other parts of the system need. A suspension has a from date and a to date, and the number of days is worked out from them. A penalty has an amount. A case can be marked as blocking the increment, which is the flag a salary review looks for. And a case cannot be closed until the action taken is recorded, because a closed case with no action is the file that nobody can explain later.

Every field, in plain words

Header

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Transaction No	The case reference	DC-2026-0019	Required
Transaction Date	The day the case was opened	20-Feb-2026	Required. It cannot be earlier than the incident
Employee	The employee the case is against	EMP-0427 Imran Qureshi	Required. Pick him from the list
Employee Name		Fills itself. Leave it
Incident Date	The day the incident happened	18-Feb-2026	Required. No step can be dated before it
Incident Category	What kind of matter it is	SAFETY	Required. See the list below
Severity	How serious it is	MAJOR	Required. MINOR Minor, a first or small lapse. MAJOR Major, repeated or costly. GROSS Gross Misconduct, the category that can end employment
Reported By	Who reported it	EMP-0088 Tariq Mehmood	Pick him from the list
What Happened	The facts, written plainly	Operated the ring frame with the guard removed during the night shift, witnessed by the shift supervisor.	Required. Write facts, not conclusions
Action Taken	The company's decision	WRITTEN	See the list below. Required before the case can be closed
Action Date	The day the decision was given	28-Feb-2026
Suspension From	First day of suspension	21-Feb-2026	Enter both suspension dates or neither
Suspension To	Last day of suspension	23-Feb-2026	Cannot be before Suspension From
Suspension Days	How long the suspension ran	Fills itself from the two dates, counting both ends. Leave it
Penalty Amount	A fine or recovery imposed	PKR 2,000	Cannot be negative. Recovered through payroll, see Employee Additional Payment Or Deduction
Blocks Increment	This case stops the next increment	Ticked for a major or gross case	The salary review reads it
Case Closed	The case is finished	Ticked once the action is given and any appeal is over	Cannot be ticked while Action Taken is empty
Closed On	The day it was closed	Fills itself with today when you tick Case Closed, and clears when you untick it. Leave it
Remarks		Guard refitted the same night, toolbox talk repeated for the whole shift

The Incident Category values:

• ATTN Attendance. Habitual lateness, absence without leave, leaving early.
• CONDUCT Conduct. Behaviour on the premises, language, fighting, smoking in a prohibited area.
• PERF Performance. Repeated failure to meet a standard, after coaching. Prefer a Performance Improvement Plan where the matter is genuinely capability and not conduct.
• INSUB Insubordination. Refusing a lawful instruction.
• SAFETY Safety. Bypassing a guard, not wearing protective equipment, unsafe operation.
• HARASS Harassment. Treat with the confidentiality the matter deserves.
• FRAUD Fraud or Theft. Money, material or time.
• OTHR Other.

The Action Taken values, roughly in order of weight:

• NONE No Action. The case was examined and nothing was found. Record it, do not delete the file.
• VERBAL Verbal Warning.
• WRITTEN Written Warning.
• FINAL Final Warning.
• PENALTY Penalty. A fine, with the amount in Penalty Amount.
• SUSP Suspension. With the from and to dates filled in.
• DEMOTE Demotion. Also needs a new posting on Employee Organization Assignment.
• TERM Termination. Also needs the termination date on Employee Basic Information.

Case steps

One line per step of the procedure.

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Line	Line number	Fills itself
Step	Which step of the procedure this is	NOTICE	Required. NOTICE Show Cause Notice, RESPONSE Employee Response, ENQUIRY Enquiry, HEARING Hearing, DECISION Decision, APPEAL Appeal, CLOSURE Closure
Step Date	The day the step took place	21-Feb-2026	Required. It cannot be before the incident date
Conducted By	Who ran the step	EMP-0012 Nadia Saleem	Pick from the list
Conducted By Name		Fills itself. Leave it
Outcome	What came out of the step	Employee admitted removing the guard to clear a lap
Document Reference	The paper that proves the step happened	Notice HR-SCN-2026-11	Put the letter or minute reference here. It is what an inspector asks for
Remarks

How to configure it

1. Open the case the day the incident is reported. Enter the reference, the case date, the employee and the Incident Date.
2. Pick the Incident Category and the Severity, and write What Happened as facts.
3. Name who reported it.
4. Add a step line for the show cause notice, with its date and the letter reference.
5. Save, and come back to the case as the procedure moves. Add a line for the employee's reply, for the enquiry, for the hearing, each with its date and the person who ran it.
6. When the decision is made, set Action Taken and the Action Date. For a suspension enter both suspension dates and let the days work themselves out. For a fine enter the Penalty Amount.
7. Tick Blocks Increment if the decision is meant to affect the next salary review.
8. Add the decision step line, and the appeal line if there is an appeal.
9. Tick Case Closed once everything is done. The closing date is stamped for you.
10. Carry out whatever lives elsewhere: a penalty recovery in payroll, a termination date on the employee record, a new posting for a demotion.

Scenarios

A worker bypassed a machine guard on the night shift

Incident category Safety, severity Major. Step lines for the show cause notice, the written reply, the hearing and the decision, each with its date and letter reference. Action Taken a written warning, with Blocks Increment ticked if the client's policy is that a major safety case costs the increment. The whole file is four lines and a decision, and it exists if the matter is ever questioned.

HR wants to suspend somebody for three days pending enquiry

Enter Suspension From and Suspension To and the days are counted for you, including both ends. Record the suspension itself as a step line so the sequence is visible. Whether the suspension is paid or unpaid is a payroll matter, handled through Employee Additional Payment Or Deduction, not here.

The man appealed and won

Add an Appeal step line with the date and the outcome. Then change Action Taken to what now stands, which may be No Action, and leave the earlier step lines exactly as they are. The file is the history, not the final position only.

A man is simply not good at the job

That is capability, not discipline. Use a Performance Improvement Plan. Open a disciplinary case only when the matter is conduct, or when a plan has been run properly and failed.

Finance wants the fine recovered from next month's salary

Record the Penalty Amount here so the case file is complete, and raise the recovery as a deduction in payroll. This screen records the decision. It does not deduct.

What it is connected to

• Employee Basic Information holds the employee, and the last suspension date on his record.
• Employee Additional Payment Or Deduction is where a penalty or an unpaid suspension is actually recovered.
• Employee Organization Assignment is where a demotion becomes real, with an effective date.
• Performance Improvement Plan is the right screen for a capability problem.
• Salary Revision and the increment process read the Blocks Increment flag.
• BlackList is where a dismissal that must prevent rehire is recorded.
• Grievance is the mirror image: a complaint by an employee rather than against him.

If something looks wrong

• "It will not let me close the case" - Action Taken is empty. A closed case has to say what was decided.
• "It refused a step date" - the step is dated before the incident. Check the incident date, one of the two is wrong.
• "The suspension days are blank" - only one of the two suspension dates is filled. Enter both or neither.
• "The increment still went through" - Blocks Increment was not ticked, or the salary review was run before the case was recorded.
• "The penalty was never recovered" - this screen records the amount, it does not deduct it. Raise the deduction in payroll.
• "The case date is before the incident" - the case cannot be opened before the thing it is about happened. Correct whichever date is wrong.