Broadly-speaking, a grievance is a complaint about an aspect of someone’s employment. It can be about specific services provided by the organisation; about specific people; and/or their behaviour. Common grievances are about allegations of harassment, bullying, discrimination or other misconduct. It should be treated seriously and regarded as an internal dispute.
There is a difference between a grievance and whistleblowing. If the complaint is about the way the organisation deals with its customers or finances, it may be better managed under whistleblowing. Here, we focus on grievances only.
Receiving and handling a workplace grievance can be particularly challenging but there is no doubt that speedy and effective management of these internal disputes not only fosters a positive work environment, but also mitigates the risk of costly legal complications further down the line.
You can find more information on best practice from the ACAS website or the gov.uk website.
There are four steps in a grievance procedure:
- Informal step: can this complaint be resolved informally? Can workplace mediation help?
- Formal process: if the informal step has not worked, or the grievance is already formal, the first step is to meet with the aggrieved employee to go through their grounds for grievance. They have the right to be accompanied at the meeting by a work colleague or a trade union representative. The Chair of the meeting will normally be a manager, with HR present to advise and take notes.
- Second step – investigate: you will have identified during the grievance meeting who else you need to speak to, as part of the investigation. Meeting with any person or persons ‘accused’ will be your next step. Make sure they are also given the right to be accompanied and given a copy of the grievance, so they can prepare ahead of the meeting. The same Chair and HR will hold these investigative meetings. If any witnesses were identified, they should all be asked to provide a written statement.
- Third step – review: review all the evidence at your disposal and write to the aggrieved employee with the outcome. The purpose of this review is to go through each point of dispute and decide whether they are valid grounds for grievance. The aggrieved employee has the right to appeal against the outcome and be accompanied at the appeal; the letter will tell them how to do this.
- Fourth step (if applicable) – the appeal: the appeal meeting will be chaired by a different manager, usually at equal level or more senior, and a different HR person. This is to avoid claims of bias. The purpose of the appeal is not to re-hear the grievance, but to go through the main grounds for appeal, ensure the grievance procedure has been followed and consider any new information. The outcome from the appeal will be confirmed in a letter. This decision is final and there is no further right of appeal.
Post–meetings: It is important to close the loop because it’s easy to forget about the people who were accused of wrongdoing. From the whole process and the grievance and appeal meetings, learnings should be extracted and conveyed to the relevant parties. If the allegations made against someone have been found to be untrue, this person should be told the grievance is now concluded and no further action will be taken. If, on the other hand, there is a case to answer for, then a decision will be made whether formal disciplinary action is warranted and the disciplinary procedure will be followed.
We’ve written a more in-depth article on grievances, which you can access here.
If you would like to discuss how we can help with a grievance, training or workplace mediation, contact us today.
