In a recent Employment Court decision, following a personal grievance for unjustified dismissal, the Judge found that the employer’s disciplinary process was below standard…

In part this was because the managers involved in the disciplinary meeting failed to keep any notes of what the employee said in response to the allegations raised with her.
It is important to keep good notes of what the employee says so that the employer can be seen to have listened to what has been said, and taken it in (even if what was said was not accepted).

A lack of notes means the ERA or Court has no contemporaneous record of what was said.  In this case the employee admitted serious wrong-doing so a note of that would be really helpful to justify the employer’s decision.

In this case the employee’s behaviour was so illegal she was found to have been justifiably dismissed, and so got no remedies for the poor process.  However, in the normal case you should not risk it.  Write it down.

If you need assistance with handling a disciplinary process give me a call on (04) 473 6850.