What is a written warning and how long does it last?

You are handed a form, asked to sign it, and told it is "just a warning". Two things then happen: you sign without reading it because you want the conversation to end, and eighteen months later it appears in a dismissal hearing.

This guide is part of our Discipline at work: warnings, hearings and dismissal, which links every guide on the topic.

Both of those are avoidable, and the second one is often unlawful.

What discipline is for

The Code of Good Practice: Dismissal, 2025, which came into force on 4 September 2025 and replaced Schedule 8 of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995, treats workplace discipline as corrective rather than punitive. Older guidance still cites Schedule 8; the principle is unchanged. Item 6 of the 2025 Code says the purpose of discipline is for employees to know and understand the standards required of them, and that disciplinary processes are primarily a means of correcting behaviour through graduated measures, which may include counselling, warnings, suspension and a final warning. The idea is that an employee is made aware of the standard, given an opportunity to meet it, and dismissed only where correction has failed or where the misconduct is serious enough that the relationship cannot continue.

That produces the familiar sequence, usually called progressive discipline:

• an informal discussion or counselling
• a verbal warning
• a written warning
• a final written warning
• dismissal

The sequence is a guide, not a statutory ladder every employer must climb. Our guide to verbal, written and final warnings explains how each level differs. Two qualifications matter.

Serious misconduct can justify dismissal for a first offence. Item 7 of the 2025 Code says serious misconduct may be a single instance, if it makes continued employment intolerable. Theft, fraud, assault, gross dishonesty and serious safety breaches do not require a warning history. Our guide on what counts as a fair reason for dismissal sets out the distinction.

Steps can be skipped where the conduct warrants it. The Code says formal procedures need not be invoked every time a rule is broken, and that more serious infringements may call for a final warning or dismissal. An employer may go straight to a final written warning for something serious but not dismissible.

How long a warning lasts

There is no statutory validity period. This surprises people who expect the Act to say. The 2025 Code does not set one either.

The period comes from the employer's own disciplinary code, and the common ones are:

• three months for minor matters
• six months for most conduct
• twelve months for a final written warning

Some codes provide longer for specific serious categories. Some provide nothing at all, in which case what is reasonable in the circumstances becomes the question.

Two consequences follow, and they cut in opposite directions.

Read your employer's code. It is the document that answers this question, not the internet. Ask for a copy; item 6(4) of the 2025 Code says disciplinary rules and procedures should be clear and made available to employees in a way that is easily understood.

The employer is bound by its own code. This is the important one. An employer whose code says a written warning is valid for six months cannot rely on a seven-month-old warning as the step that justified a dismissal. Doing so is one of the commonest reasons employers lose dismissal disputes, and it is entirely self-inflicted.

What "expired" actually means

A point of frequent confusion, so it is worth being precise.

An expired warning cannot be relied on as a step in progressive discipline. It is spent. The employee stands, for that purpose, as though it had not been issued.

What it does not mean is that the paper is destroyed or that the incident never happened. Item 13 of the 2025 Code expects employers to keep records of each employee's disciplinary transgressions, the action taken and the reasons, and item 9 lists the employee's disciplinary record among the factors relevant to whether dismissal is appropriate. In a narrow set of circumstances a court or arbitrator may therefore look at an overall disciplinary history when considering the appropriateness of a sanction. But the employer cannot treat an expired warning as the third step before dismissal.

The practical test: if the dismissal only makes sense because of a warning that has expired, the dismissal is in trouble.

What should happen before a warning is issued

A warning is a disciplinary step, and fairness applies to it in proportion to its seriousness.

You should be told what the allegation is. Specifically: the conduct, the date, the rule.

You should be given a chance to respond. For a minor written warning this may be a short conversation rather than a formal hearing. For a final written warning, which is one step from dismissal, a proper hearing is appropriate, and our guide on disciplinary hearings sets out what that involves.

The warning should be in writing, stating the conduct, the rule breached, the level of warning, the validity period, and the consequence of repetition.

You may usually appeal, if the code provides for it, within the period the code specifies.

Signing it

The question everybody asks in the room.

Signing acknowledges receipt, not guilt. That is what the signature line normally means, and most forms say so. Signing does not concede that you did what is alleged.

If you disagree, write that on the form. "I acknowledge receipt. I do not accept the allegation and I will be appealing." One sentence, in your own handwriting, above your signature. It takes ten seconds and it changes the document permanently.

If you refuse to sign, the employer will simply note the refusal in front of a witness and the warning stands. Refusing achieves nothing except removing your opportunity to record your position on the face of the document.

Ask for a copy. Always. A warning you cannot produce is a warning you cannot challenge.

Challenging a warning

Appeal internally, within the period in the code. This is the main route and it is free.

Grieve it, where the code has a grievance procedure and no appeal for warnings. Our guide on grievance procedures explains the stages.

Think before referring a minor warning. A warning is not a dismissal, but unfair disciplinary action short of dismissal is an unfair labour practice under section 186(2)(b) of the Labour Relations Act, so an unfair warning, most often a final written warning, can be referred to the CCMA or a bargaining council within 90 days. In practice a verbal or first written warning is rarely worth a referral; a final written warning that puts your job at risk often is.

And where it is more than a warning. Where a warning is part of a pattern amounting to victimisation, or was issued because you raised a grievance, exercised a right or made a protected disclosure, that is a different matter and may be an unfair labour practice. Our guide on unfair labour practices sets out the categories, and the referral period there is 90 days rather than 30. Our CCMA deadline checker works out the dates.

Keep the record either way. Your copy, your written comment on it, the appeal, and the outcome.

Consistency is the strongest argument

If you take one thing from this page into a hearing, take this.

Employers are expected to apply discipline consistently. Where two employees do the same thing and one receives a warning while the other is dismissed, the difference has to be explicable by something other than who they are.

That applies to warnings as much as to dismissals. An employee warned for something that three colleagues do openly and without consequence has a real point, and it is a point about the employer's conduct rather than their own.

Gather it specifically: who, when, what happened to them. Vague assertions that "everyone does it" carry no weight; three named instances with dates carry a great deal.

If you are the employer

Put the validity period on the form. A warning with no period stated is an argument waiting to happen. Our written warning template has a field for it, along with the conduct, the rule and the employee's comments.

Diarise expiry. The reason employers rely on expired warnings is that nobody was tracking them.

Follow your own code, even where the general law would permit more. The code is the standard you will be held to.

Be specific about the conduct. "Poor attitude" is not a rule. Lateness on stated dates is.

Distinguish conduct from capacity. Poor performance and ill health are not misconduct and warnings are the wrong instrument for them; they require counselling, assistance and accommodation instead.

Keep it consistent, and be able to show that you did.

Worked example

This example is illustrative. An employee receives a written warning for lateness in February, valid for six months under the employer's code. She is late again in November and receives a second written warning. In December she is late once more, and the employer dismisses her, relying on all three incidents as a progression.

The February warning expired in August. By November it was spent and could not serve as a step in progressive discipline.

So the employer's actual position at the dismissal is one valid written warning and one further incident of lateness. Dismissal for lateness on that history is difficult to justify, and it is likely to be found substantively unfair even though every factual allegation is true.

What the employer needed to do in November was treat that as the first live step, issue the warning, and follow the sequence from there. Our guide on dismissal for absenteeism or late coming explains how that sequence usually runs for lateness.

Now the employee's side of the same facts. In February she signs the form without reading it and keeps no copy. In November she does the same. At the arbitration she cannot say what validity period either warning carried, and the employer produces only the November document.

Had she written one sentence on each form and kept her copies, the expiry point would have been hers to make, with the paper to prove it, rather than something an arbitrator had to notice on her behalf.