This help guide will explain how to issue a written warning in Tanda, covering the necessary permissions required to issue a warning, a step-by-step explanation of how to issue a written warning, and common FAQs.
Note: The Warnings feature is only available for users on the Tanda HR plan.
What Does This Help Guide Cover?
What are Warnings?
For more context on Warnings within Tanda and how they apply, please see our companion help guides:
The final of these guides, detailing Warning Templates and Letters, is especially pertinent.
Permissions
To issue a written warning, ensure the Create Warnings permission has been enabled for your role-type (e.g., Admin, Manager, General Manager) via Settings > All Settings > Permissions > Show Advanced Settings > Customise access & roles here.
Then, select 'View' next to the role-type you wish to edit, navigate to HR > Warnings > Create, and ensure this is toggled on.
Below this, you will also find the relevant permission settings for Warning Templates. As always, the best way to test the impact/success of these changes is by impersonating another user with the role-type you're editing (assuming you're the account Admin). For instructions on this, see our help guide: See What Your Staff See.
By default, Managers can issue written warnings to staff in the teams that they manage, while Admins have unrestricted access to issue written warnings.
There are no circumstances under which anyone with an underlying Employee role-type can create, delete, or edit written warnings, with the only configurable options for this role-type being to acknowledge and view warnings.
Issuing a Written Warning
To issue a written warning, navigate to HR > Warnings > Warning Templates and either select ISSUE next to your desired existing Warning Template or +CREATE WARNING TEMPLATE to create a new one.
See our help guide: Warning Templates and Letters Explained for more details on this process.
For the sake of this guide, we will assume that you already have an appropriate Warning Template configured (if not, see the above guide, follow the instructions to create one, and then return here). In that case, you would simply select ISSUE.
You will be directed to the following page:
Selecting the Employee
From the above page, you can select the employee to whom you want to issue this written warning from the dropdown 'Employee' menu.
There is currently no option to support bulk-issuing warnings to multiple employees simultaneously, so you will need to repeat this process for each individual employee to whom you want to issue a warning.
Other Fields
As well as selecting the employee to whom you want to issue the warning, to complete the form, you will also need to provide:
Date: Select the desired issue date of the warning.
Internal Notes: Add any internal notes you may want to affix to this warning (note that the employee will not be able to see these).
Letter to employee: Add the appropriate warning letter for the employee. You can either write this from scratch, or, to save time, copy & paste one from your pre-existing Warning Letters. As a further time-saver, to pre-attach a Warning Letter to your template, apply the following setting during the Warning Template creation process, or edit your existing Template(s) (using the Three-dot ⋮ Menu > Edit) to apply this setting:
For example:
Attachment: Add any attachments to your warning (up to 15MB max; images and documents only).
Publish as draft: If ticked, your warning will initially be published as a draft and will not be viewable by the employee. The primary intended use case for this would be to create a warning as a draft so that it isn't visible to the employee, but is visible to other Managers/Admins who may want to review the warning before it is issued.
Draft warnings will display as follows:
To issue a draft warning, simply click View, then click Issue and confirm you want to issue the warning immediately by selecting Issue Warning.
Should you not tick the Publish as draft? setting simply click CREATE at the bottom of the page, and your warning will be issued.
Issued warnings will display as follows:
The below image shows warnings in all three possible states, Issued, Draft, and Acknowledged:
Employee Acknowledgement
Once issued, the employee being warned will receive an email similar to the one below, prompting them to view and acknowledge the warning in Tanda.
Employees simply need to click View in Tanda in the email and then click Acknowledge in the top-right corner of the Warning page to acknowledge the warning.
Once acknowledged, the warning will appear as follows:
After this, clicking VIEW will provide more specific details about the dates on which the warning was issued and acknowledged.
FAQs
Who is notified when written warnings are issued?
Who is notified when written warnings are issued?
When a written warning is issued by a manager, a notification email is sent to the employee from support@tanda.co. They will also receive a push notification via the mobile app. Once the warning has been acknowledged, the issuer will also recieve confirmation.
Beyond this, you can customise who is notified when warnings are issued using this setting in the Create Warning Template form:
What's the difference between Warning Templates and Warning Letters?
What's the difference between Warning Templates and Warning Letters?
Warning Templates: Are an overall template for your warning, which you can use to control settings such as who is notified when the warning is issued, who can issue the warning, warning visibility, and the warning name/reason. You can also automatically attach a Warning Letter to a specific Warning Template.
Warning Letters: These are the actual letter(s) the employee being warned recieves outlining the details of their warning and any corrective action or follow-up steps they may be required to take.
To meet specific legal requirements, Warning Letters are often required to follow a specific format, contain specific information, and be issued in particular ways, which you can learn more about via this Fair Work Ombudsman resource.
If confused, a Warning Letter is (or, at least, can be) contained within a Warning Template.
To learn more, see our help guide: Warning Templates and Letters Explained.
How do I edit an existing Warning Template?
How do I edit an existing Warning Template?
To edit an existing Warning Template, navigate to HR > Warnings > Warning Templates. Then select the Three-dot (⋮) Menu > Edit. You can follow this same process to delete a template, selecting Delete instead of Edit as the final step.
How do I see when a warning was issued/acknowledged?
How do I see when a warning was issued/acknowledged?
To see when a warning was issued/acknowledged, navigate to HR > Warnings > Warnings (again, from the side menu, as clicking HR > Warnings will direct you to Warning Templates by default). Then, select View next to your desired warning. If it has been both issued and acknowledged, you will see both dates:
If it has been issued but not yet acknowledged, you will only see the issue and creation dates:
I can't access this feature/issue a warning. Why not?
I can't access this feature/issue a warning. Why not?
There are a variety of potential explanations for this, with the most common being, you either aren't a Tanda HR subscriber, or you don't have the necessary permissions as outlined in this guide. If you believe you meet both of these criteria and are still having issues, please contact support@tanda.co
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