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In employee issues, it is common for many people to be involved in communication with and about an employee (Reliant staff, ministry or church staff, etc.). To ensure that leadership and HR is aware of the status of the issue, decisions made (or to be made), and any communication/conversation, records needs to be completed in a shared place. This is not meant to replace the practice of documenting performance management issues and/or standard progressive discipline forms that go into Employee File. Rather, it is a summarized record of what has been done to address and resolve the employee issue.

Process

Any communication involving employee conduct (email, verbal, text, etc.) should be documented in a timely manner (preferably immediately but within 24 hours).

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03/04/2020 - Julie email to John Doe

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Generally speaking, documentation should include the following:

• The date of the event and when the documentation was prepared. (They should be the same in most situations. Supervisors should always prepare their notes for file soon after the event took place.)
• A description of what was said. It is not necessary to quote verbatim. It is important to capture the key thoughts, who agreed to what, and the details about any deficiencies or issues the supervisor pointed out. The level of detail depends on the topic and how important details were to the conversation.
• How the conversation ended. What action plan was agreed to by both people?
• Will there be a follow-up meeting?

Best Practices for Note Taking

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• Do focus on facts.
• If something is hearsay, make that very clear in notes.
• Don't diagnose why employee is performing poorly.
• Don't include your mental impressions or editorial comments.
• Don't embellish, stretch the truth, or call something what it's not.

Here is a quick word about creating documentation after the fact. While it is always best to be able to say that your notes were made right after the event or conversation, it is also possible to create your notes in the days following that event. When you write notes after the fact, always put the date on them representing when you wrote them. If you had a conversation on January 2 with an employee but didn’t get around to writing your notes until three days later, mark your notes with the January 5 date. That way, there will be no question about the fact that you prepared them after the event. It could be beneficial if you stuck in a note saying what caused the delay in preparing the documentation.