Handling a grievance: the employer's guide
Most grievances are lost on process, not on the facts. The procedure is short - complaint, meeting, outcome, appeal - and a tribunal can add 25% to an award where an employer unreasonably skipped part of it.
Deal with it promptly, in a meeting the employee can bring a companion to, and give the outcome and a right of appeal in writing. Failing to follow the Acas Code on discipline and grievance without good reason lets a tribunal increase an award by up to 25% (s.207A TULRCA 1992) - and the same section cuts an award by up to 25% where the employee was the one who unreasonably failed to follow it.
The shape of a fair procedure
- The complaint. Ideally in writing, setting out what happened and what the employee wants done. If it arrives verbally, write down what you were told and confirm it back - do not wait for a form.
- A meeting, without unreasonable delay. Give enough notice for the employee to prepare and to arrange a companion.
- Investigation. Sometimes before the meeting, sometimes after it, depending on what the complaint is. Serious allegations should be investigated by someone not involved in them.
- The outcome, in writing. What you found, what you decided, what happens next, and how to appeal.
- An appeal, heard by someone who was not part of the original decision wherever your size allows it.
That is the whole procedure. Nearly every grievance that becomes a tribunal problem failed at step 2, step 4 or step 5 - a meeting that never happened, an outcome given verbally and never confirmed, or no appeal offered at all.
The right to be accompanied is statutory
Under s.10 Employment Relations Act 1999, a worker who makes a reasonable request may be accompanied by one companion: an employed trade union official, a union official certified as trained or experienced in accompanying, or another of your own workers. That last category is the one small employers forget - a colleague is a perfectly valid companion, and there is no requirement for a union to be involved at all.
The companion may address the hearing to put the worker's case, sum it up, and respond on the worker's behalf to views expressed, and may confer with the worker during the hearing. They cannot answer questions on the worker's behalf, and cannot stop you putting your case.
If the chosen companion cannot make the time you proposed, the worker can propose an alternative - and provided it is reasonable and falls within five working days beginning with the first working day after the day you proposed, you must postpone to it. This is a right, not a courtesy. Refusing a properly made request is a straightforward breach, and an avoidable one.
Where employers actually go wrong
Resolving something informally is genuinely better for everyone when it works. The problem is when the informal conversation is the whole response to a formal complaint - no meeting, no findings, no written outcome, nothing to appeal. If the employee has raised a grievance, the process runs even if you also try to fix it quietly.
Obvious when stated, common in practice - because the procedure says "raise it with your line manager" and nobody wrote down what happens when the line manager is the problem. Name an alternative route in the policy before you need it.
A decision delivered in a corridor is unevidenced and unappealable. Write it down: what was complained about, what you found, what you decided, what you are doing, and how to appeal, with a deadline.
"Without unreasonable delay" is judged against what was reasonable in your circumstances, not against a fixed clock - but a grievance that goes quiet for weeks with no explanation is hard to defend. If something legitimately takes time, say so in writing and give a new date.
What if the grievance is against a colleague?
A grievance about another employee - bullying, harassment, unfair treatment - follows the same fair procedure, with three extra disciplines. First, separation of roles: the person investigating the grievance must not also be handling any disciplinary that comes out of it against the colleague. Second, parallel duties: the accused colleague is owed a fair process too, so tell them what they need to answer, not everything the complainant said. Third, confidentiality with limits - promise discretion, never absolute secrecy, because if the account discloses harassment you may be under a duty to act on it whether or not the complainant wants to proceed. If the complaint is against the person's own line manager, route it past them - a procedure that dead-ends at the subject of the complaint is no procedure at all.
Person-against-person cases - a grievance about a manager, a colleague, or one raised against you - carry enough extra weight that they have their own guide: routing past the subject, what the accused is told, and the grievance-to-disciplinary junction.
Overlaps worth planning for
- Grievance raised during a disciplinary. Consider whether to pause the disciplinary while the grievance is dealt with, or run them together where they are closely related. Either can be reasonable; failing to consider it is not.
- Grievance that is really a harassment complaint. Route it through the anti-harassment policy, which carries its own preventative duty and record-keeping - see the duty to prevent sexual harassment.
- Grievance from someone who has already left. There is no obligation to run a full procedure after employment ends, but a proportionate written response is usually a better outcome than silence.
- Anonymous concerns. They cannot go through a normal grievance process, because there is nobody to meet - but they still tell you something, and ignoring a pattern of them is its own risk.
Keep the record
Keep the complaint, the invitation letters, notes of the meetings, the investigation material, the outcome and the appeal. These are personal data - often about more than one person - so they need a retention period and access limited to those who need it, in line with your record-keeping obligations generally. What you should not do is keep them informally in a manager's inbox, which is where most of them are.
Our grievance procedure template puts all of this into a policy you can issue.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if an employer does not follow the Acas Code on grievances?
Under section 207A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, a tribunal can increase an award by up to 25% where an employer has unreasonably failed to comply with a relevant Acas Code. The same section works in reverse: an award can be reduced by up to 25% where the employee unreasonably failed to comply.
Who can accompany an employee at a grievance hearing?
Under section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999, a worker who makes a reasonable request may be accompanied by one companion - an employed trade union official, a trade union official certified as trained or experienced in accompanying, or another of the employer's workers. The companion may put the worker's case, sum it up and respond on their behalf, and may confer with the worker during the hearing, but cannot answer questions for them.
Can an employee delay a grievance hearing if their companion is unavailable?
Yes. If the chosen companion cannot attend the proposed time, the worker can propose an alternative that is reasonable and falls within five working days beginning with the first working day after the day the employer proposed. The employer must postpone to that time.
Does a grievance have to be in writing?
Good practice is for the employee to set out the grievance in writing so that everyone is clear what is being complained about. But an employer who is told about a serious problem verbally cannot ignore it because no form was filled in - the duty to act arises from knowing, not from the paperwork.
Must an employer offer a right of appeal against a grievance outcome?
Yes - an appeal is a core part of a fair procedure, and it should be heard by someone who was not involved in the original decision wherever the organisation is large enough to allow it. Omitting the appeal is one of the most common reasons a tribunal finds the process unreasonable.
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A case file, not a manager's inbox
CoDash keeps grievance and dignity-at-work cases as structured records - who raised what, the meetings, the outcome, the appeal - with access limited to the people handling it and anonymised statistics for everyone else.