Grievance procedure: handling a complaint you did not choose to receive

A grievance procedure is the route by which an employee raises a complaint about their work, their treatment or their terms, and the process by which you answer it. It is the mirror image of a disciplinary procedure: there the employer initiates, here the employee does, and the loss of control is what makes employers handle it badly. The complaint arrives at an inconvenient moment, about a person you rely on, and the temptation is to resolve it informally and move on. Sometimes that works. When it does not, the only thing left is what was written down.

The stages of a grievance procedure

1. Informal discussion first, where the matter allows it — and a note that it happened, even if nothing else is recorded.
2. A written grievance from the employee, setting out what happened and what they want done. Do not insist on a form; a letter or an email is a grievance.
3. Acknowledge in writing within a stated number of days, and say who will hear it.
4. A meeting, held without unreasonable delay, at which the employee may be accompanied by a colleague or union representative.
5. Investigation where the facts are disputed — spoken to, documented, and done between the meeting and the decision rather than instead of them.
6. A written outcome with reasons, and the right of appeal stated explicitly.
7. An appeal heard by someone not involved in the original decision. This is the stage most often skipped and the one most often fatal.

What the record has to show

• The date the grievance was received, which starts every clock that matters.
• Who heard it and why they were appropriate — in particular, that they were not the subject of the complaint.
• Notes of the meeting, ideally agreed with the employee, and a record of who attended.
• What was investigated and what was found, separated from what was concluded.
• The outcome, the reasons, and the date it was communicated.
• The appeal: who heard it, on what grounds, and the result.

In the UK the Acas Code of Practice sets the minimum standard, and an unreasonable failure to follow it can increase a tribunal award by up to twenty-five per cent. Other jurisdictions have their own equivalents. Nothing here is legal advice — check the rules that apply where the employee works, not where the company is registered.

Where employers go wrong

• Delay. A grievance left for six weeks is read as a decision, and it is the fact most easily proved against you.
• The wrong person hearing it — most often the line manager the complaint is about.
• Treating an informal complaint as not a grievance because it did not arrive on the right template.
• No appeal offered, or an appeal heard by the same person who made the first decision.
• Resolving the complaint and never telling the employee what was decided, which converts a closed matter into a live one.
• Retaliation after the event, including subtle forms — reassignment, exclusion, a sudden change in performance feedback — which is usually the thing that turns a grievance into a claim.

Where the case lives

Ettex Records keeps one record per grievance with the dates, the people, the stage and the outcome as fields rather than buried in an email thread, restricted to the people who should see it. That restriction matters more here than almost anywhere else: a grievance file readable by the wrong colleague is itself a serious problem. The written procedure belongs alongside your other hr policies examples and in the employee handbook, so nobody has to ask what the process is while they are already upset. Ettex does not give legal advice and has no view on whether a grievance should be upheld.