While disciplinary issues can be tricky to get right, dealing with grievance complaints can be even more fraught. This is because it’s common for more than one employee to be involved and for emotional accusations to be laid at your door.
It’s essential that your organisation develops the skills to manage grievances effectively. If they are not dealt with properly, employees will feel devalued and demotivated – and may even choose to leave as a result. If you want to give your employees the assurance that work problems will be managed, you’re advised to:
- Have a simple but thorough grievance procedure in place that explains to employees what will happen should they choose to raise a complaint
- Demonstrate respect for the employee’s point of view, even if you don’t uphold their grievance in the end
- Investigate the grievance thoroughly
- Look for a solution that could help to address the issues faced by all parties involved in the grievance – and make sure that you follow up on any promised actions
- Explain fully to the employee what you can and can’t change in order to resolve the grievance.
Who Should Investigate Grievance Complaints?
The best grievance investigators are patient, objective and good at establishing the facts around a particular situation or incident. If you can persuade the employee to have the complaint dealt with on an informal basis, it’s probably best if their line manager handles it. However, if a formal grievance involves the line manager, someone who is unconnected to the issue should investigate.
Grievances can range from trivial to extremely serious. Cases of alleged bullying, harassment or discrimination in particular require you to demonstrate that they have been investigated thoroughly.
A serious grievance can have a major impact on a small company’s ability to operate day to day, particularly if you have to keep certain employees apart or end up suspending one of them. Even small grievances can affect working relationships badly so it’s essential that they are dealt with in an organised and efficient manner.
In some cases, small businesses ask an independent consultant to come in and investigate on their behalf. Depending upon the situation, this can actually save the company in terms of time to investigate and to help ward off any potential employment tribunal claims, especially if managers are not trained in dealing with grievances.
The Grievance Process
Your grievance procedure should set out how to raise a grievance It’s also a good idea to set out at the start of the document that you’re committed to resolving problems informally wherever possible and have a culture of listening to any work-related problems that employees have. This sets the right tone and indicates that you take employee complaints seriously.
The procedure should also make it clear who will investigate at what level and who will be able to hear any appeal that the employee submits.
Grievance investigations should be treated in the same way as disciplinary investigations. The investigator should gather the information they need to establish the facts of the cases, including interviewing affected parties and referring to policies and relevant documents.
Of course, the first step is to interview the employee who has raised the grievance. It’s often the case that employees fail to include certain details in their written grievances and pieces of information need to be clarified. It’s also worthwhile asking the employee what they think should happen or what they would like to see changed as a result of their complaints. This will give you a good idea of whether it will be possible to resolve the issues for the employee or if there may need to be some kind of compromise.
When you have gathered all of the relevant information, you should piece together the facts that you are able to establish and produce a report for the person hearing the grievance. If there are any gaps, you should do your best to close them so that the person hearing the grievance has all the relevant information to help them make a decision.
The grievance investigator will make recommendations on the outcome of the grievance but it is up to the person hearing the grievance to actually decide on the outcome.
The Grievance Appeal
Employees have a right to appeal if they are dissatisfied with the outcome. In order to comply with the ACAS Code of Practice, the appeal should be heard wherever possible by a more senior and independent manager. However, while it’s not recommended, in very small organisations, it’s possible for the same manager to hear the grievance at both stages without breaching the Code.
Find out how we can help you manage a disciplinary or grievance issue in your company.
