“If only they would have apologized from the start/at the beginning/right after it happened.” How many times have we said or heard those or similar words either at work, or in our personal lives?
We listen for many reasons including exchanging and understanding information, to establish or maintain relationships, to build rapport with others through empathic listening, to bridge social and cross-cultural gaps and in general to learn from one another.
Disciplining an employee is the start of what can be a long, costly and relationship damaging process with the potential to have that discipline reversed or lessened even if your facts are correct and you followed your process to the letter.