Rule three requests a reasonable time period. How much time is reasonable when it comes to giving your employees a chance to turn their problematic performance around? That depends on the nature of the work that your company is engaged in, the length of time the employee has been with you, and how you’ve handled similar situations in the past. No one would expect you to allow an employee to run your business into the ground. Still, your warnings
can’t seem prescribed or mechanical. In other words, you typically
wouldn’t give someone a written warning for substandard job performance onMonday and then turn around and terminate the person on Tuesday. Under most circumstances, that wouldn’t be reasonable.

Your remaining employeeswould know that, and moralewould sink. A jury would also find this unreasonable. Rule four states that the consequences must be clear. Too many employers commit serious errors at this stage. Untrained supervisors allude to open-ended consequences in their verbal counseling sessions and written warnings. Warnings to be avoided sound like these:

If you engage in such activity again, serious consequences will
follow.
I will have no choice but to take further action should you repeat such behavior.
You must immediately increase the volume of outbound teleProgressive

marketing calls. Otherwise, disciplinary action up to and including
dismissal will occur.

The obvious weakness in these examples lies in their generic nature. What are ‘‘serious consequences’’? What kind of ‘‘further action’’ is at issue? How many outbound telemarketing calls are acceptable? How many are unacceptable?

To avoid such problems, be sure to ask yourself, Are these consequences clear enough that the employee could explain it back to you? Would a jury understand exactly what I meant? Once you feel comfortable with the specific consequences you’ve outlined, be sure to discuss this ‘‘documented conclusion’’ with the worker being disciplined. Does it appear to be fair and reasonable to her? Can she
understand why you have to take these action steps as a responsible
employer? Does she understand that your failing to take these steps
could create a poor precedent in terms of your management practices? If so, you’ve done a thorough job outlining the consequences of inaction.

Taken From : The Hiring and Firing Quention and Answer Book