Suspensions Don’t Make Sense

ore than once, the Merit Systems Protection Board has found that a fired employee was guilty as charged by his agency, but that the penalty of removal was too harsh. In several cases, the board decided the guilty employee should be suspended for 90 days instead.

This scenario points to a strange animal that has inhabited the federal personnel system longer than anyone can remember-the disciplinary suspension. The question is whether such suspensions are effective and, if not, what are the alternatives. Suspensions are fundamentally illogical. When supervisors, managers and union officials are asked the most common reason for disciplining employees, the answer comes easily-absenteeism. "So, as punishment for once again failing to come to work or having an acceptable excuse, we're sending you home," they tell their offenders.

The concept of suspensions is to encourage better behavior through economic deprivation and/or penance. This theory is simple enough. If someone is sent home without pay, the economic loss will encourage the employee not to repeat the mistake.

However, those with experience in labor relations know that by the time some employees are suspended, being short of money often is a way of life. Chronic offenders, especially those with repeated absenteeism, oftentimes have dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of leave without pay (approved unpaid absences) on the books already. More days at home without pay are unlikely to make a huge impression. The penance theory comes from the belief that if employees were to stay home and consider their misdeeds, they would repent and rehabilitate. But people who get suspended are unlikely to use their time off work for introspection and self-examination. Having spoken with dozens of employees who were suspended, it seems as if vacations, household projects and plotting revenge are as likely uses of the time away from work as reflection and atonement.

In an era of doing more with less, managers can ill afford to lose the services of staff for disciplinary reasons. One Navy manager even asked that his employee serve her suspension over consecutive weekends, so the agency would not suffer her absence during the workweek.

Then comes the added burden of paperwork. A suspension requires a formal notice of intent, an employee right to respond (orally, in writing, or both) and then a formal decision, usually from a higher-level manager. The paperwork involved in suspending an employee costs the government many work hours. Notices have to be prepared and reviewed, forms have to be completed, personnel and payroll computer records must be adjusted and paper files (such as the employee's personnel folder) must be updated.

So why do managers keep doing it? Because they've always done it, because the law provides for suspensions, and because most haven't read the Office of Personnel Management's Alternative Dispute Resolution Resource Guide, which suggests alternatives to such discipline. The most important reason human resources folks recommend suspension is that unlike reprimands and other written warnings, it results in a permanent record of misconduct. Federal agencies suspend employees more to create a paper trail of infractions than to rehabilitate their bad habits or behavior.

So, why not just use letters to document past misdeeds, without sacrificing an employee's services or docking his pay? Most agency discipline regulations and union contracts call for expunging disciplinary letters after a year or two. Then the prior discipline can't be cited as a reason for firing a repeat offender.

Federal managers could avoid suspensions, while still imposing discipline, within the existing structure. Suspensions involve a three-step process-a notice, a right to reply and a decision-and the deciding official can agree with the proposed penalty, mitigate it or throw the whole thing out.

But consider another option. The official who chooses suspension could offer a choice: Serve the suspension without pay, or agree to a reprimand in lieu of the suspension that would become a permanent record in his personnel folder. As long as grievance rights aren't sacrificed, employees may prefer such reprimands.

But agencies would reap the greatest benefit. Getting out of the business of disciplinary suspensions would save time and money. It would encourage wayward employees and their union representatives to participate in determining the consequences of their actions, and it would minimize grievance processing and liabilities.

In the end, the Merit Systems Protection Board's notion of a 90-day suspension is emblematic of how ineffective our discipline program has become. If managers can do without someone for three months, why would anyone think that employee's return to work would improve efficiency? The federal government must move toward disciplinary concepts that account for workplace realities. Durable reprimands in lieu of suspensions is a place to begin.