hr-disciplinary-procedure git:20261026.a2f0899A

Immutable. This exact content never changes and is served at /api/v1/blob/efb8692dc47fb6b8.

---
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 90n.
---

# 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 90n ([90n.ai](https://90n.ai)): AI-native ways of working and tools for Product, Marketing and HR teams, built by ex-McKinsey founders. We map where time and money leak, redesign the work around AI and stay until your people run it themselves, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).