Legal Question in Employment Law in Washington

Re: How long can a employer take to discipline an employee based on a customer c

Unless if there is a collective bargaining agreement (union) that governs or some other type of binding employment agreement or procedure (see your handbook), an employer can usually take as long as they wish to discipline the employee.

As a rule of thumb, however, employers should consider imposing discipline within a month or sooner of the offending conduct. The closer in time the discipline occurs to the offending act, the less susceptible the employer's conduct is to charges of pretext for unlawful employer conduct (e.g., discrimination, retaliation, etc.) In other words, if the employer waits too long, it may appear that the employee is really being punished for some intervening event or some other possibly protected conduct.