grievance

All Employers are advised to have a grievance procedure for employees to use, if they are unhappy with any of your working conditions.

In April 2009 the Statutory Grievance Procedure was repealed so for Grievances occurring after 6th April 2009 (or 3rd April 2011 in Northern Ireland) the new ACAS code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures should be followed. We look at the Code and what your Employer should provide here.

The emphasis of this new Code is to try to resolve grievances informally, without reverting to a formal procedure, or to resolve them with the help of a 3rd party (mediator). The Code sets out the basic requirements of fairness that should be applicable in most cases. Grievances should be handled promptly and without unreasonable delay and any evidence obtained by the Employer should be reliable and ideally corroborated.

Failure of an Employer to follow this new Code does not in itself make an Employer liable to Employment Tribunal proceedings. However, an Employment Tribunal will take the Code into account and can reduce or increase awards given to an Employee, depending on whether the Employer and/or Employee have followed the Code.

Where Employees raise a grievance during a disciplinary process (see information about Disciplinary Procedures) the Disciplinary process may be suspended in order to hear the grievance, although if they’re about the same issue they may be heard and decided together.

Keys to handling grievances in the workplace –

The employee lets the employer know the nature of the grievance

  • If it’s not possible to resolve a grievance informally, employees should raise the matter formally and without unreasonable delay with a manager who’s not the subject of the grievance. This should be done in writing and should set out the nature of the grievance.
  • Read more in the full article.
2 thought on “Grievance Procedures – Employers need one”

Comments are closed.