Disciplinary Measures or Professional Development? Ethicaland Legal Choices in the Workplace

The article tries to highlight some legal and ethical aspects present in the difficult situation that arises in the relationship between the employee and the employer when the option of sanctioning and the option of training professionally before sanctioning are very close. As it results from legal practice, often a sanction applicable to an employee following an alleged professional misconduct can also be analyzed from the perspective of a lack of prevention on the part of the employer, and the best way to prevent this misconduct is professional training. The choice in this situation tends to sanction only after professional training has taken place. On the other hand, vocational training does not guarantee a drastic reduction in professional misconduct, and the sanction, most of the time gradual, can itself be a signal of the employee's professional recovery. As the decision always comes with sacrifices on one side or the other, in the article we propose an ethical analysis in addition to the legal one in order to make an eventual choice easier.