Discipline without punishment DSWD hones skills on positive disciplining

CEBU, Philippines -  The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is upgrading the skills of their employees on “positive disciplining.”

All thirty center heads, division chiefs, team leaders and unit heads of the DSWD in Central Visayas recently underwent training on “Discipline without Punishment” (DWOP) at the Northwinds Hotel in Cebu City.

DSWD-7 Assistant Regional Director for Operations Nemia Antipala conducted the training and explained that most organizations have used a fairly uniform procedure to manage usual personnel problems such as absenteeism, poor performance and other misconduct.

When employees fail with the policy or expectations of the organization, the method used is usually called “positive disciplining”.

It provides for an increasing serious series of penalties such as reprimand, warnings and suspensions without pay. When there is a problem, the job of the manager is to find the punishment that equals the misconduct.

Today, an increasing number of companies including government agencies like the DSWD are moving away from using a criminal justice mentality for employee performance improvement through correction of action.

The DSWD started the DWOP training this year especially designed for supervisors, center heads, managers, team leaders and even unit heads.

DSWD information officer Jaybee Binghay said the aim is to slowly abandon the traditional approaches that focus exclusively on punishment and instead on adopting an approach of accountability.

She added that with the DWOP, employees with unfavorable performance, conduct or attendance issues are required to take personal responsibility for their choice of behavior.

“It taught supervisors on how to be able to discipline their employees. You have no right to reprimand your employee kung wala kay gitudlo niya. It will be productive and a participative form of discipline wherein it is a win-win situation to both parties,” said Binghay.

Antipala explained that DWOP is a non-punitive approach that makes clear of the supervisors’ role to also recognize employees when they perform well, a normal policy requirement which is a new step of an organization’s overall discipline procedure.

The two-day training examined the common problems that arise from the participants’ respective areas of assignment with a punitive system and identified step-by-step procedures on putting a non-punitive, responsibility-based approach to discipline and demonstrated supervisory skills without punishing their subordinates. —MIT (FREEMAN)