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Q: "An employee made offensive remarks to her supervisor and was given a formal warning. She has just broken an important health and safety rule. As this is a different type of offence, do we have to start at the beginning of our disciplinary procedure?"
A: You would only need to do this if you had a separate disciplinary process for dealing with health and safety issues, which I suggest is unlikely. Each of these incidents is an example of misconduct, therefore, assuming that the first one is still valid, you may proceed to the next sanction if, following a disciplinary hearing, you believe that the employee did in fact break the rule and there are no mitigating circumstances.
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