The formal process: acknowledgement, the Sanction Lock & imposing a sanction

What this guide covers

Working a formal incident from raised to closed on the Incident Detail screen — the right-to-reply status, the Sanction Lock, and how a sanction officer imposes a sanction once it's allowed.

Who can do this: viewing needs incident-create / sanction / HR-admin (with row-level scope); imposing a sanction needs the sanction permission (or HR-admin). Sensitive — confidential.

The detail screen

It shows the full picture for one incident:

The document — employee, who raised it, category, incident date, the objective facts, and evidence attachments.
Right to Reply (audi alteram partem) — the acknowledgement status:
- Awaiting employee acknowledgement (with a deadline countdown), or
- Acknowledged (with the timestamp, the employee's typed confirmation, and integrity details), or
- 24h window expired — no acknowledgement.
Sanction — the control to impose a sanction, shown only when allowed (see below).
Audit timeline — an append-only log of every step.

The Sanction Lock

This is the heart of fair process:

While the incident is Pending Employee Acknowledgement, the sanction control is locked — you'll see "Sanction locked. A formal sanction cannot be issued until the employee acknowledges the incident or the 24-hour right-to-reply window expires."
The lock releases automatically when the employee acknowledges, or when the 24-hour window expires — the incident then becomes Ready for Sanction.
The lock is enforced by the system, not just hidden in the screen — it can't be bypassed.

Imposing a sanction

Once Ready for Sanction, a user with sanction authority sees the sanction form:

Choose a sanction level on the disciplinary ladder — Verbal Warning, First Written Warning, Second Written Warning, Final Written Warning, or Dismissal Hearing.
Add sanction notes.
Impose Sanction & Close — the incident closes with that level recorded.

If you hold only the create permission (no sanction authority), you'll instead see a note that the window is closed and a sanction officer must now act — a deliberate separation of duties.

If the allegation isn't upheld

Not every incident ends in a sanction. If you investigate and find the allegation baseless, close it as not upheld — nothing is imposed and the employee is cleared on the record.

Not upheld — close with no sanction sits on the Sanction card. You must record a finding (why it wasn't upheld) — it goes on the timeline and into the incident thread, so the employee can see they were cleared and why.
It doesn't wait for the lock. Unlike a sanction, this is available while the incident is still awaiting acknowledgement. The right-to-reply window exists to stop someone being punished unheard; clearing them harms nobody, so there is nothing to wait for.
The record is kept. This is not a withdrawal — the incident, its facts and its full timeline stay in place, showing it was raised, investigated and not upheld. No disciplinary escalation is opened and nothing counts toward the ladder.

Other actions

Amend facts — only before the employee has engaged (pre-acknowledgement). After that, the facts are frozen.
Withdraw — soft-deletes the incident (with a reason, audited) for an incident that should never have been raised at all. It is not the tool for one you investigated and found baseless — close that as not upheld, which clears the employee on the record instead of hiding it. Only before a sanction.
The private reply thread — the employee's case is captured in a thread with HR; the raising manager cannot see it. HR can read it for fairness.

Good to know

Don't wait at the lock unnecessarily — it releases on acknowledgement or at 24h; the dashboard shows what's stuck.
Separation of duties is intentional — the person who raises isn't necessarily the person who sanctions.
Everything is on the timeline — it's your defensible record.

Raising an incident — the step before this.
If an incident is raised about you — what the employee does to acknowledge.
Incident dashboard (HR) — spotting incidents stuck awaiting acknowledgement.