Write the incident as a record, not a verdict

Something happened with an employee and it has to go into the file. The reader who matters is not you and not the employee — it is whoever opens this note months later: another manager, an HR investigator, a lawyer, an arbitrator. They ask one question of every line: is this something the writer actually saw, something a named person reported, or the writer's own conclusion? A note that lets those three blur together is worse than no note, because it looks like evidence while resting on the writer's impressions.

Left alone the base model writes a verdict dressed as a record. It produces a fluent paragraph that decides the case and speculates about why: "Jordan was clearly being insubordinate and hostile in the meeting, probably because he's been under a lot of stress lately — he seemed almost out of it, like he may have been drinking or dealing with something personal. This kind of attitude is unacceptable." Almost every clause there is a defect. "Insubordinate," "hostile," and "unacceptable" are conclusions with no observed behavior under them. "Probably because he's been under stress," "seemed out of it," "may have been drinking," "dealing with something personal" are guesses about a health condition and a state of mind the writer cannot see — and some of them point straight at a protected characteristic. In a record, speculation is not empathy and adjectives are not evidence; they are the findings a good investigator will strike.

The discipline is one shape, and every note has all of it.

Separate what you saw, what was reported, and what you concluded

This is the whole spine. Keep the three in distinct, labeled buckets and never let one migrate into another:

• Observed — what you personally perceived, in the first person. "At 9:12 AM I saw Jordan

stand up, push his chair back, and say loudly, 'This is a complete waste of my time,' then leave the room." Concrete, sensory, no interpretation.

• Reported — what someone else told you, attributed to the named person who told you and framed

as their statement, not as fact. "After the meeting, Priya told me that Jordan had said to her earlier that morning he 'wasn't going to sit through another one of these.'" You are recording that Priya said it — not certifying that it is true.

• Conclusion / action — kept last, kept short, and clearly labeled as yours. "Based on the

above I am scheduling a follow-up conversation about meeting conduct." A conclusion is allowed; disguising it as an observation is not.

The failure to guard against is laundering — a reported allegation or your own inference appearing in the note as flat fact. "Jordan yelled at Priya" is laundering if you did not hear it and Priya reported it; the honest line is "Priya reported that Jordan yelled at her." The reader must be able to tell your eyes from your ears from your opinion on every line.

Write it in the first person, from your own vantage

The record is your account, so write "I observed," "I heard," "I was told by," "I asked." Avoid the passive, ownerless voice ("it was observed that," "there was an incident") that hides who perceived what. First person is not informal here — it is what makes the note attributable to a person who can later be asked what they meant.

Time-stamp it and tie it to the job

• When. Put the date and, where it matters, the time the events happened and the date you are

writing. A note that reads as written at the time carries weight; one reconstructed vaguely "sometime last month" does not.

• Job conduct, not the person. Anchor every entry to specific work behavior — attendance, a

deadline, following a safety rule, how someone spoke to a colleague on the job. Record what the person did, not what they are. "Arrived at 9:40 for a 9:00 shift start, the third such arrival this week" is job-related and factual; "has a lazy attitude" is a character verdict with no conduct under it and no place in the file.

Do not speculate about health, mind, or protected class

This is the line the base model crosses most, and it is the one with real consequences. Record the observable behavior and stop there. Do not write down a guess about:

• A medical or mental-health cause — "seemed intoxicated," "looked high," "was clearly

depressed," "must be off his medication," "seemed to be having a breakdown." You are not qualified to diagnose and the file is not the place to try. If behavior was observable and job-relevant (slurred speech, unsteadiness, the specific words said), record that behavior in plain terms without naming a cause.

• A protected characteristic or a motive tied to one — age, race, religion, national origin,

disability, pregnancy or family status, and the like. Not as an explanation ("probably a cultural thing," "at her age," "hormonal," "because of his condition"), not as a label, not as an aside. If it is not observed job conduct, it does not go in the note.

If you genuinely do not know why something happened — and you usually do not — the correct entry is the observed behavior with the cause left blank, not a plausible-sounding guess.

The shape, in one note

> Date of incident: 05/14/2026, ~9:10 AM. Written: 05/14/2026, by M. Alvarez (manager). > > Observed: During the 9:00 AM team standup, at approximately 9:12 AM I saw Jordan stand, > push his chair back forcefully, and say in a raised voice, "This is a complete waste of my time." > He then walked out of the conference room and did not return before the meeting ended at 9:30. > > Reported: After the meeting, Priya (on the same team) told me that just before standup Jordan > had said to her he "wasn't going to sit through another one of these." I did not hear this > exchange myself; I am recording what Priya reported. > > Conclusion / next step: I am scheduling a one-on-one with Jordan this week to discuss conduct > during team meetings. No determination about discipline has been made at this time.

Three buckets, kept apart. First person. Dated. Tied to what happened at work. No guess about why.

When this applies

Use it when an incident has occurred and needs to be written into the record so it holds up later — a meeting outburst, a no-show or late arrival, a missed commitment, a complaint one employee brings about another, a safety-rule violation. Do not use it to decide whether the conduct warrants action (that is a separate judgment), to build a performance-improvement plan going forward, or to write the warning or termination letter the employee will receive — those are different documents with different readers.