Corrective Action

Corrective action: a definition

Corrective action (الإجراء التصحيحي), in human resources management, is an administrative step an organisation takes to address a shortfall in performance or a fault in the way work is done. Its purpose is to put right what comes next, not to penalise what has already happened.

A corrective action is recognised by being stated as something to be done: what changes, who does it, within what period, and how both sides will know it has been achieved. A step from which nobody can tell what is required is not a corrective action, whatever it is called.

Corrective action is not the first rung of the disciplinary ladder

A corrective action and a disciplinary penalty are not two rungs on one ladder. The first is neither a preparation for the second nor a milder version of it, and the two differ at their root:

• A corrective action. It is an administrative decision the organisation takes in managing the work, and its subject is performance and how to address it.
• A disciplinary penalty. It is a decision for which the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) sets a track, limits, a procedure that must come first and periods for a grievance against it.

Those rules sit in the Labor Law and in the establishment’s work regulation (لائحة تنظيم العمل), and the definition of corrective action settles none of them. Parts of them are examined under demotion, suspension and procedural justice, and how the work regulation is prepared is covered in our guide to the work organisation regulation.

Two practical consequences follow from keeping corrective action and the penalty apart. Taking a corrective action is not imposing a penalty, and it is not to be treated as one. And an organisation that wants the penalty track has to follow it with its procedure in full: an earlier corrective action does not stand in for any step of that procedure, and it removes none of them.

In the sources we reviewed, we found no provision making a corrective action a precondition of any statutory decision, and none providing that its absence bars one, so neither is stated as a rule.

A performance improvement plan stands in the same position. It is a management tool for addressing a shortfall in performance, not a disciplinary penalty, and having one in place does not replace the disciplinary track.

What a corrective action corrects

A corrective action can be aimed at the employee alone. The question that comes before it is where the cause of the fault lies:

• In knowledge. The employee does not know what is required or how to do it, so the correction is teaching, or a clearer statement of what is required.
• In the tool or the authority. The employee knows what to do but cannot do it. Aiming the action at them places on them a burden whose source is the organisation.
• In the procedure. A missing step in the workflow produces the error for anyone who passes through it. The correction then falls on the procedure, not on whoever made the error.
• In performance, with knowledge and means in place. It is the only case in which an individual corrective action, written out in full, belongs.

The same error recurring with different people is a sign that its cause does not lie with the people.

What makes a corrective action complete

• A specific incident, not a general description of behaviour: what happened, and when.
• An observable requirement, where both sides know how it will be shown to have been met.
• A known period, with a review date inside it.
• What the organisation commits to: a tool, time from the manager, or training. An action that makes demands of the employee alone assumes the whole cause lies with them.
• A written close. Either the fault has been put right and the matter is closed, or it has not, and what follows is considered under the organisation’s policy and the statutory track. An action left to lapse in silence produces nothing and leaves the matter hanging over the employee.

How corrective action relates to other management tools

• Continuous feedback is lighter and comes earlier. A remark made at the time can resolve a matter that, left alone, would later need a written corrective action.
• A performance improvement plan is heavier and more formal. It is used where the gap has been described and needs a period, reviews and a written commitment from both sides.
• An internal investigation comes before any decision where the facts themselves are not established. What has not been established is not a basis for a correction or for a penalty.
• Coaching can be one of the forms of support inside a corrective action. It does not take the place of a performance improvement plan, and it does not carry a described gap, a required level and a period, as a plan does.

Corrective action in a worked example

The difference between a complete corrective action and one in name only shows once the requirement is written in numbers. Take a customer service employee who closed 120 tickets last month, against a published standard of closing each ticket within 24 hours:

• Tickets that went past 24 hours: 44 of 120, that is, 44 ÷ 120 ≈ 37%.
• The requirement over six weeks: a rate of no more than 10%, that is, at most 12 tickets out of 120.
• The review point in week three: halfway between 37% and 10%. With a gap of 27 points, half is 13.5, and 37 less 13.5 gives 23.5%, which is about 28 tickets out of 120.

Both sides know how to check this requirement, and it has a midpoint at which a stall shows before the period runs out. Set against it the phrase “improve response times”: it does not say what is required, when it counts as achieved, or what figure the review will agree or disagree on.

Before the action is aimed at anyone, the cause has to be located. Suppose it emerges that 26 of the 44 late tickets, 26 ÷ 44 ≈ 59%, waited more than eight hours for approval from another department. More than half of the delay then came from a step in the workflow, not from the person at that step. An individual corrective action in that situation asks the employee for what they have no means to deliver, and it produces a shortfall that, six weeks on, can look like a refusal to improve.

That is why a corrective action states what the organisation commits to with the same precision: authority to close a defined category of ticket directly, a deadline for the department that gives approval, or a weekly hour in which stalled tickets are reviewed with the manager. A commitment that is neither described nor dated does not, in the final reckoning, exist.

Decisions called corrective action that are something else

A name does not move a decision into a different category. Among the decisions given this name that are of another kind:

• A note recorded to build a file. If the aim is to document a sequence for later use rather than to put right what comes next, the label does not fit. The sign is that the document carries no requirement, no period and no review, only a description of what happened.
• A change of duties or a transfer. It is an organisational decision with considerations and conditions that attach to it, and it may be appropriate, but it does not address a shortfall in performance through a requirement and a period. Where it is the right decision, it follows the procedure that governs it and is called by its name.
• Withholding a raise or a bonus. Withholding or deferring a raise is one of the penalties on the closed list in Article 66 of the Labor Law, so where it is imposed for a violation it is a disciplinary penalty, with the track that goes with one. Where a raise or a bonus is withheld for a reason other than a violation, it is a decision on pay, governed by the organisation’s pay policy. In neither case does it carry the elements of a corrective action: it does not say what is to change, or how the change will be known.
• Telling the employee that the situation, if it continues, may lead to a decision. It reports a possibility; it is not a step towards putting anything right. It can be mentioned inside a corrective action, but it does not take the place of one.
• A meeting that ends with nothing in writing. Unless a requirement, a period and a review date are written down, it is a conversation. It may be a useful one, but it is not a corrective action.

The general rule is that a corrective action is identified by its content: a described requirement, a period, a sign of achievement, a commitment on both sides and a written close. Where these are present it is a corrective action even if it is not called one. Where they are missing it is not one, even with the name written at the top of the document.

Corrective action in situations that need particular care

• A fault that affects safety. It is not addressed with a period lasting weeks. The situation is stopped or made safe first, and only then is any action concerning performance considered. The order of the two steps is not a detail.
• An interruption during the period. Leave, a secondment or a stoppage of work within the period means the period measures time in which the employee did not work. The period is extended by the length of the interruption or set again, and the change is written into the same document, not left to a spoken understanding.
• A change of manager. An action begun by one manager and taken over by another needs a written confirmation of the requirement and the period as they stand. Otherwise the reference point becomes the memory of someone who has left.
• Work performed at a third party. Where performance is observed by a party other than the organisation, the facts are checked before they are built into an action, because what the third party observes may measure something else.
• An employee on probation. The short duration makes a long period meaningless, and any decision built on the action is of another kind, taken under the procedure that governs it and not on the basis of a general definition.
• The same fault recurring with successive holders of one role. It is a sign that the cause lies in the role, not in whoever holds it, and that what is needed is a review of the job description or of the workflow.

Where a corrective action is kept

What is written in a corrective action is an administrative document, and it belongs in the employee file, so that both sides keep a record they can refer back to. Keeping it there does not change its nature or turn it into something else: it remains a documented administrative step. In particular, it does not become the minute that Article 71 of the Labor Law requires before a penalty.

Statutory sources on corrective action

The provisions relied on are those of the Saudi Labor Law as published by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development: Article 66 (the closed list of penalties) and Article 71 (the minute required before a penalty). Royal Decree M/44 of 1446H, in force since 19 February 2025, did not amend Articles 66 or 71 of the Labor Law.

Before a corrective action is written

The test comes before the document: can someone who reads it, six weeks later, say what was required, by when, what the organisation undertook to provide, and whether the requirement was met? If the answer is yes, it is a corrective action. If not, it is a description of a problem with a heading above it, and it settles nothing for either side when it is consulted again.

This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.

Related terms

• Positive Discipline
• Procedural Justice
• Performance Standards
• Employee File
• Employee Assistance Program