SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/506886
8 SportsTurf | May 2015 www.sportsturfonline.com H ave you ever tried to fix something and didn't have the right tool? You can try and improvise, but eventually you end up spending a lot of extra time and money to finish the job because you started unprepared and without the right tool. The same is true if you are involved in any type of legal proceedings with employees. If you don't invest time and effort on proper employee documentation to begin with, you could be spending count- less hours and thousands in legal fees after the fact. Proper documentation is one of the most important tools in an employment relationship. Proper documentation is quite simply a requirement in today's liti- gious society. Most Human Resources professionals will tell you that merely "recalling" generalities of discussions or incidents are literally, "Worth the paper they ARE NOT written on." In legal circles, most attorneys would prefer one page of supporting documentation than 10,000 words of testimony. This is because many times lawsuits may not come to trial for several months or even years after an incident has occurred. By then important details about what has happened may be forgotten or the memories of individuals can be discounted in the absence of support- ing documentation. Occurrences in the employee relationship, positive and negative, need to be properly documented to help authenticate the occurrence, ensure integrity of the details of the occurrence, and complete a reliable picture of the employment relationship over time. GUIDELINES FOR WRITING DOCUMENTATION When writing our final drafts of documentation, we need to keep the Guidelines for Employee DOCUMENTATION in mind: D- Document facts, not opinions O- Observations are documented C- Consistent U- Use proper grammar M- Measurable goals and standards E- Eliminate document "invalidators" N- Note progressive discipline T- Truth/accurate Document Facts, Not Opinions. "Facts, just the facts." Focus on the, "Who, what, where, when, and how's" of the occurrence. Who was involved? What was discussed? Where did it take place? When did it take place (mak- ing sure to include the time and date, including year). How did this occur? Also when documenting we need to keep in mind the "audience" that may be reading this information one day; notes you may be making just for your- self or an employee's file may one day be read/used by someone completely outside of your department. This "audi- ence" can include future supervisors (in cases of employee transfer/promo- tions), HR departments, government agencies (i.e., unemployment claims), or possibly even attorneys or legal GUIDELINES FOR EMPLOYEE DOCUMENTATION FACILITY & OPERATIONS ■ BY CAROLE DAILY IMAGE ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ALDEGONDE