News

Pam Loch responded in the Financial Times on 13 December 2008 to a question posed by a reader regarding employees in his travel company raising grievances to prevent redundancy. 

Pam Loch responded:

“This is a question that many of our clients are asking at the moment and we could be witnessing a trend of concerned employees using grievance procedures to try to protect their jobs.  However, the employees are mistaken in this belief and it should not necessarily result in you delaying or changing your views on the potential restructuring of your company.

It does mean though, that you will have to ensure you deal with the grievances properly.

The first thing you should do is check that you have a grievance procedure that complies with the statutory requirements. You should then follow your procedure.

Grievance procedures usually start with an informal stage where you try to resolve the grievance informally. If this has already been done then the formal stages apply. This will usually involve an investigation and arranging to meet the employee to discuss their grievance.

Once a decision has been made, the employee must be advised of the decision in writing and made aware of the right of appeal. If the employee appeals the decision an appeal meeting will need to be arranged to consider the appeal.

While this is ongoing, it is possible to continue your restructuring process. It is important though, that you ensure as far as you can that different managers are involved in the processes.

If you have too few managers or you’re concerned about their ability to manage the processes, you should consider appointing an independent HR consultant to carry out the grievance process for you or to assist you in managing the restructuring. Doing this should ensure that the restructuring process is not tainted or regarded as biased against the employee who brought the grievance in the first place.”