Watch our short video on grievances and how to deal with them more effectively for more detail
Create a good culture
Listen and remove emotion
Be impartial, or use someone who is
It’s estimated that one in four people are unhappy with some element of their work, and we have grievance processes in place to deal with this, which is fine, but often a grievance is seen as a bit of an attack on your company.
You tend to go into defence mode.
The employee stays unhappy, they leave, and they may even raise a tribunal claim.
So how can you avoid this?
- Encourage a culture in the workplace where employees feel happy to approach you if they’ve got concerns.
- When they do come to talk to you, take the time to listen.
- Take your emotion out of the conversation, think about things from their point of view, and ask them how they see the problem being resolved.
- If you still can’t come to an agreement, you maybe want to think about getting some kind of mediation service involved. Sometimes having a neutral third party involved in the conversation can help both sides feel they’ve been listened to.
- If you do end up dealing with a formal grievance, it’s important to be as impartial as possible, and if you feel that you can’t be impartial, it may be time to outsource that grievance to someone who can be.
- Once the grievance is dealt with, put it behind you, there’s nothing worse than the taste of sour grapes
Make sure employees are familiar with your grievance policy and that your managers are trained to deal with grievances effectively.
Do you have questions about grievances and how to deal with them effectively?
Give us a call at CUBE HR, we’ll be happy to advise you and we have policies and templates available to meet every HR need.
Why not check out our other blog on the same topic When is a Grievance Not a Grievance?
You can also watch a range of other videos on our YouTube channel
