, the feeling of being "under the gun" makes it difficult for the employee to improve Since in many companies, progressive discipline is only used for employees that it wishes to terminate, any employee called into the boss's office is already on the way to becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. As Cascio (2003, p. 9) points out, discipline "must be administered consistently" and impersonally lest it be perceived as unfair. Moreover, employee termination cases that end up in court can cost the company substantial amounts of money, so if progressive discipline has been used merely as a documentation process to protect the company, the company may find itself in difficulty anyway if the court finds that the company has not honestly worked with the employee to ameliorate the problem. Punitive damages can be severe, with $2,700,000 being the average amount awarded in employment cases and $6,400,000 being the average amount in cases where racial discrimination is being charged ("Don't Fall," 2003). Even more sobering, "The employee wins 70% of the cases that go to a jury" ("Don't Fall," 2003).
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