101 Sample Write-Ups for Documenting Employee Performance Problems: A Guide to Progressive Discipline and Termination

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Termination Notices

#93 Summary Discharge: Threatening a Coworker with Bodily Harm

May 18, 2010

Mary Beth Kaline

3000 Peachtree Road

Atlanta, GA 30326

Dear Mary Beth,

As we discussed over the phone, our company will no longer be able to employ you as

a security guard. After completing an investigation regarding a coworker’s complaints

about you and your complaints about the coworker, I have determined that your

behavior was inappropriate and that it potentially could have created a hostile work

environment.

I base my findings on the fact that you admitted to Telecommunications Supervisor

Denise King that you did indeed make threatening faces at this coworker. You stated

to Supervisor King that “if this had occurred anywhere but here, I would have beat the

shit out of her.”

You also repeated this threat in writing to me in your letter dated May 15, 2010. You

wrote in that letter explaining your side of the story that “if we were outside, I would

take matters into my own hands.” Such direct or veiled threats of violence violate

company standards of performance and conduct and preclude us from continuing

your employment relationship with this organization.

Thank you for your weekend “on-call”

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services over the past two years. If you have

any questions or would like to discuss this further, please call me at 555-555-5555.

Sincerely,

Michael Shanahan

Director of Security

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An “on-call,” also known as a “standby,” employee does not work a specified schedule but is available to

respond to calls to work as needed. Such workers typically do not receive employer-sponsored benefits, and

there is generally less of a need to provide formal due process because of the casual nature of the employment

relationship. (In other words, you would be less obligated to follow the verbal–written–final written paradigm

for on-call workers than for regular full- or part-time workers.) Although it could be argued that a twenty-year,

full-time employee might not be summarily dismissed for this very same incident, most employers retain the

flexibility to consider the worker’s employment status when administering discipline.