Wanted: Thoughts on Zero Tolerance

I will be hosting a gathering of the minds at Caribou tomorrow morning, mochas on me, can you be there?

Here is the set-up: organizations have zero tolerance areas. An employee's alleged behavior falls in one of the zero tolerance areas. The organization is determining the appropriate disciplinary action to propose.

Here is the question: does zero tolerance mean automatic removal? Said differently, would anything less than removal condone the behavior? 

Yes, there is a specific issue that brought the question to the table and now it is the question itself that I want to explore. It goes beyond any single issue or set of circumstances.

Since face to face is not feasible, although it would be awesome, how about link to link or comment to post?

What do you think?