Dealing with a grievance can be a tricky path for managers. A disciplinary situation is pretty clear when you see one, someone has done something they shouldn’t, but often with a grievance managers are faced with a decision to make: is this employee just ‘on one’, or is it something that needs looking into?

Here’s our guide to what’s what.

The Employment Law Suit

We know what you’re thinking, what does a lawyers stuffy suit have to do with a grievance, but stick with us and watch the clip below:

Ok so if you’re still with us, the first question you should encourage your managers to ask themselves is:

Has what’s happened gone against the employees contract, your companies policies and procedures, or statutory employment law?

Usually, our rule is if the answer is yes, it’s a grievance. But it can be a bit more complicated than that, so onto step two…

Decide what the complaint is about

The second step is to decide what the complaint is about. In our experience it’s usually one of three things:

  1. Complaints about what the organisation has done
  2. Complaints about what a manager has done (or not done)
  3. Concerns about the way a co-worker has behaved

Lets take no.3 as our first example.

If what’s being described is an employee feeling mistreated by a colleague, it could be discrimination, or a breach of trust and confidence. In short, this needs looking into as a grievance or dignity at work concern.

But if it’s a complaint about a manager and what they have or haven’t done, encourage your managers think about what they have allegedly done: has it gone against the ‘employment law suit’?

No?

Then the decision might be an unpopular one – but its not a grievance.

The caveat here though, is if there is an issue with how they have done it, it will need looking into. Was the language a trust and confidence dealbreaker? And this is where managers can tie themselves up in knots.

Our ‘Grievance or Gripe’ video gives your managers some other examples to illustrate this point too to give them the confidence that they are making the right decision.

There is a grievance to look into, to go formal or not?  

Informal management aces dealing with foot in mouth, one-to-one type issues – where causing conflict was the last thing on anyone’s mind.

A big part of the decision to go formal will be how many people are involved in the complaint. Our grievance suite of videos will take your management team through how to make this decision, how to plan and conduct an investigation, a formal grievance hearing and an appeal (if we get there). Drop us a line for a free trial of all our grievance videos to see how they can work for your managers here.

 

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