What is a grievance?
A grievance is a formal complaint raised by an employee about their working conditions, treatment, or relationships at work. Grievances can cover a wide range of issues, including pay and benefits, working conditions, bullying or harassment, discrimination, health and safety concerns, and management decisions.
Every employer with one or more employees should have a grievance procedure in place. Under Section 3 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, you are legally required to provide employees with written details of how to raise a grievance as part of their written statement of employment particulars. If you do not have a procedure, or you have one but do not follow it, you are exposing your business to unnecessary risk.
Why grievances matter
Grievances are not just a box-ticking exercise. They serve a genuine purpose, and how you handle them can make or break your working relationships and your legal position.
The Acas Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures sets out the minimum standard that tribunals expect employers to follow. It is not legally binding in itself, but if a case goes to tribunal and you have failed to follow the Code, the tribunal can increase any compensation award by up to 25%. Conversely, if the employee failed to follow it, their award can be reduced by up to 25%.
Unresolved grievances have a habit of escalating. What starts as a complaint about a manager's communication style can evolve into a constructive dismissal claim if the employee feels their concerns were ignored. The cost of defending an employment tribunal claim can run into tens of thousands of pounds, even when you win. Taking grievances seriously from the outset is not just good practice. It is good business sense.
Step 1: Receive the grievance
A grievance should ideally be submitted in writing, though your procedure should allow for situations where an employee raises a concern verbally and needs support putting it in writing.
Once you receive the grievance, acknowledge it promptly. Aim for within two to three working days. Let the employee know you are taking their complaint seriously and explain what will happen next.
Assign an impartial manager to handle the grievance. This must be someone who is not the subject of the complaint and has no personal involvement in the issues raised. If the complaint is about the employee's direct line manager, you need someone more senior or from a different part of the business.
Step 2: Investigate
Before holding a grievance meeting, you need to establish the facts. The scope of the investigation will depend on the nature of the complaint, but typically involves:
- Interviewing the employee to understand the full detail of their complaint
- Interviewing witnesses who may have relevant information
- Speaking to the person the complaint is about, giving them a fair opportunity to respond
- Reviewing documents, such as emails, policies, rotas, or records that are relevant to the issues raised
Keep detailed notes of every interview and document you review. These records are essential if the matter escalates to tribunal.
The investigation should be proportionate to the complaint. A grievance about an unfair shift allocation will require a different level of investigation than a complaint about bullying or discrimination.
Step 3: Hold the grievance meeting
Invite the employee to a formal grievance meeting in writing, giving reasonable notice. The employee has the statutory right to be accompanied by a colleague or a trade union representative. Make sure this right is clearly stated in the invitation letter.
At the meeting, listen carefully to the employee's account. Your role is to understand their complaint fully, not to defend the organisation or the individual they are complaining about. Ask open questions: "Can you tell me more about what happened?" or "How did that make you feel?" Avoid leading questions or anything that suggests you have already made up your mind.
Take thorough notes, or arrange for a note-taker to attend. Do not make a decision during the meeting. Tell the employee you will consider everything they have said and respond in writing.
Step 4: Make a decision
After the meeting, weigh up all the evidence from the investigation and the hearing. Consider:
- Is the complaint upheld, partially upheld, or not upheld?
- What action is appropriate? This could range from an apology and a change to working practices, through to formal disciplinary action against another employee.
- Are there systemic issues that need addressing, such as gaps in policies and procedures or a need for management training?
Communicate your decision in writing, setting out clearly what you found, the reasons for your decision, and any actions that will be taken. Include timescales for those actions where possible.
Step 5: Offer an appeal
The employee must have the right to appeal your decision. This is a requirement of the Acas Code of Practice, and failing to offer an appeal will weaken your position significantly if the matter goes to tribunal.
The appeal should be heard by a different, ideally more senior, manager who was not involved in the original decision. The appeal hearing follows a similar format to the original grievance meeting. The employee explains why they disagree with the outcome, and the appeal manager reviews the evidence and reaches a final decision.
Communicate the appeal outcome in writing. This decision is final.
The value of informal resolution
Not every workplace complaint needs the full formal grievance process. Many issues are better resolved through a quiet conversation, a management intervention, or workplace mediation.
Encourage a culture where employees feel comfortable raising concerns informally before they escalate. Train your managers to listen, take concerns seriously, and act on them. Often, an employee just wants to know they have been heard and that something will change.
That said, if an employee wants to raise a formal grievance, you must allow them to do so. You cannot refuse to accept a grievance or pressure someone into handling it informally. The choice is theirs.
Common pitfalls
Ignoring informal complaints. If an employee raises a concern informally and nothing changes, do not be surprised when they submit a formal grievance. Worse, if you ignored early warning signs and the situation deteriorated, a tribunal may question whether you took your duty of care seriously.
Letting the subject investigate their own complaint. This is more common than you might think. If an employee complains about their manager, that manager cannot investigate their own grievance. It is a fundamental breach of impartiality and will undermine the entire process.
Treating the grievance as a nuisance. Employees who raise grievances are exercising a legitimate right. If they are treated differently afterwards, passed over for promotion, excluded from meetings, or managed out of the business, that is victimisation under the Equality Act 2010 and could give rise to a separate claim.
Poor record-keeping. If you cannot produce notes of the investigation, meeting, and decision, a tribunal will draw negative inferences. Keep everything documented.
Grievances during disciplinary processes
It is common for an employee to raise a grievance after being invited to a disciplinary hearing. Sometimes the grievance is genuine and directly related to the disciplinary matter. Sometimes it is a tactical move to delay proceedings.
The Acas Code says you should consider whether to pause the disciplinary process while the grievance is investigated, particularly if the grievance is directly related to the disciplinary. For example, if an employee facing a disciplinary hearing for poor attendance raises a grievance that their manager has been bullying them and causing stress-related absence, the two issues are clearly linked and may need to be addressed together.
If the grievance is unrelated to the disciplinary, you can usually continue both processes in parallel, provided you ensure fairness and impartiality in both.
How Rebox HR can help
Handling grievances properly requires time, impartiality, and a solid understanding of employment law. For many small businesses, finding an impartial manager to conduct the investigation and hearing can be difficult, especially when teams are small and everyone knows everyone.
We regularly support clients through disciplinary and grievance processes, whether that means advising behind the scenes, conducting investigations on your behalf, or chairing grievance hearings as an independent third party. If the situation calls for it, we can also arrange workplace mediation to help repair relationships and move forward.
If you are dealing with an employee grievance and want to make sure you handle it correctly, book a free consultation and we will talk you through your options.
