In a small town in Texas just outside of Austin is Darcy’s Restaurant. Darcy left her corporate job as an operations manager 10 years ago to fulfill a lifelong dream of opening a restaurant based on her grandmother’s recipes. Her business model has proven to be successful as there are frequently customers lined up outside the door each day to order her handcrafted meals. Her philosophy about every item on the menu is she asks herself if her grandmother would recognize and be able to pronounce every ingredient of every dish she makes. If so, it goes on the menu. If not, Darcy doesn’t consider it “real food,” and customers will never see it.

When it comes to staffing the restaurant, like many in the food service industry, she does have turnover. But it’s not as bad as most. She estimates she has about a 20% turnover of employees. With a staff of 35 employees, it means she’s usually hiring a new person every two months. This involves a considerable amount of training on equipment, processes, policies, and procedures. It’s a strong new-hire orientation, and according to Darcy, “If they make it through the first 90 days, they’re likely to stay with us.”

One relatively new employee, Greg, has been the source of some consternation for Darcy, though. Before she hired him, she checked his references, interviewed him, and had her kitchen manager also interview him. Everything was very positive about Greg. Former employers said he was one of the best cooks they had ever had in the restaurant. And from day one at Darcy’s, his skills in the kitchen were outstanding.

Even on busy Friday and Saturday nights, he was calm and collected and never got frustrated. His plates were always well-presented—almost artistic in how he arranged the food.

Greg’s ability to operate any piece of the equipment in the kitchen was a refreshing change of pace for Darcy because it meant his on-the-job training could be kept to a minimum.

However, in his first 60 days on the job, Darcy found herself in situations where she was having to counsel Greg about certain things. At first, the matters seemed like honest mistakes. The first instance happened during Greg’s initial week of training. She had remembered that he came in a little late—only 20 minutes—because he had gotten a flat tire on his way to work. It seemed plausible, and Greg even said when he arrived, “Hang on before I get started. I have to wash my hands because I got dirty changing my tire.” Again, it all seemed reasonable. But about a week after that, when she was checking the staffing hours of all the employees, Greg’s time showed he had been on time on the day he was late. She sat him down and asked what happened. “Oh, that’s my fault,” he said. “When I clocked in that day, I just entered my usual start time without thinking. I am so sorry. Again, completely my fault. Please, dock my pay for a whole hour.

So sorry.” Darcy, of course, did not dock his pay for an hour.

She just removed the 20 minutes he was late and simply forgot about it—a simple mistake.

Questions 1. Does Darcy’s Restaurant have a progressive-discipline policy? Explain.
2. Using the seven tests for just cause, determine if Greg was terminated for just cause.
3. D o you think Darcy counseled Greg appropriately with each infraction? What could she have done or said differently?
4. G iven that Greg was such a strong employee otherwise, do you feel that termination of his employment was appropriate?
5. Did Darcy follow the five steps of the discipline model?
Explain.