SUNY University-Wide Human Resources Manual
Orientation - Discipline

last updated: Thursday, July 1, 2004

Discipline is action taken against an employee for misconduct or incompetence when other efforts (e.g., evaluation and/or counseling) fail or when a single incident is so severe as to warrant it. If a supervisor believes discipline is warranted after an employee has failed to respond to counseling, or because a particular incident is so severe as to warrant it, the supervisor should request that the President's designee for administering discipline issue a notice of discipline to the employee. Usually the President's designee is someone assigned to the Human Resources Office.

Important Considerations

  1. The President/chief administrative officer should designate in writing those officers delegated authority for administering discipline for employees represented by the various collective bargaining units and should copy the appropriate collective bargaining agent officer(s).
  2. Continuing to counsel an employee about the same misconduct or incompetence after documenting the performance shortcomings through a counseling memorandum only serves to reduce the effectiveness of disciplinary procedures. Upon the next incident following counseling, a first disciplinary penalty in a progressive disciplinary process should be recommended.
  3. Once an employee has been counseled about a specific incident, he may not be disciplined subsequently for the same incident.
  4. Once counseling or disciplinary action has been initiated, all similar incidents of misconduct or incompetence cannot be ignored but must be addressed.

The President's designee must prepare a notice of discipline in accordance with the disciplinary procedures provided in the appropriate collective bargaining agreement (represented employees) or procedures provided by the State (non-represented employees), including details about the incident(s) of incompetence or misconduct such as time and place and a proposed penalty. In all cases, the proposed penalty may not be imposed until an employee has exhausted appeal rights, failed to commence them in a timely manner, or the matter is otherwise settled. (See appropriate collective bargaining unit agreement or contact the Human Resources Office for more information, if required).

The disciplinary procedures for employees represented by a collective bargaining agent can be found in the link "NYS Collective Bargaining Agreement Subject Matrix by Article" in the references at the end of this section.

Section 75 of the Civil Service Law (see references at the end of this sectio) outlines the rights of certain categories of classified service managerial/confidential employees when disciplinary action is proposed against them. Under this section, an employee who is subject to a disciplinary action is entitled to representation rights and to a hearing on stated charges before an impartial hearing officer. The burden of proving employee incompetence or misconduct lies with the official or supervisor who filed the written charges.

SUNY Professional Service Managerial/Confidential Employees (unclassified service) are "employees at will". They serve "at the pleasure" of their appointing authority and, therefore, a disciplinary procedure is unnecessary.

Unless an extreme offense requires an extreme initial penalty, it is the policy of the State, SUNY, and SUNY campuses that discipline be applied progressively. It is hoped that a disciplined employee's behavior/performance will improve following a light penalty, but it is understood that more severe penalties will be proposed, up to and including termination, if the employee does not respond.

Whereas counseling is prospective, concentrating on providing guidance for the employee's future performance, discipline is retrospective, concentrating on past misconduct or incompetence (usually limited to occurrences within the past 12 months -- see applicable negotiating unit agreement or civil service law for limitations). Discipline imposes penalties for failure to perform properly -- counseling attempts to coax/coach employees into improving their performance and making them clearly aware of their supervisor's performance expectations so that they can avoid discipline in the future. Fortunately, most employees will respond properly and correct their performance deficiencies when advised to do so by their supervisors. However, when employees do not respond and continue to perform in an unacceptable manner, even after being counseled, supervisors must be willing to document the failures and to recommend disciplinary action.

Reference(s):

Counseling

Counseling and Discipline Guidelines from the Governor's Office of Employee Relations (GOER)

Disciplinary Standards for the Classified Service (SUNY Office of Employee Relations):

NYS Collective Bargaining Agreement Subject Matrix by Article
http://www.goer.state.ny.us/CNA/bumatrix.html

Section 75, NYS Civil Service Law - Discipline for classified service employees who are not represented for collective bargaining:
http://www.cs.state.ny.us/pio/Summary%20of%20CS%20Law/summofcsl4.htm#anchor20461

Form(s):