Grievances at Work: When to Raise One and When Not To

Very few problems at to work need to become a formal grievance. You may not have thought someone who makes a living a out of supporting people through these would say so, but it's true. In my experience, one of the most important things you can do when something goes wrong at work is work out early on whether formal is actually the right route.

Raising a grievance is your right, but it is also a significant step, and before raising anything, have a hard think on what you want to gain from it.

A formal grievance makes sense when something serious has happened and informal routes have genuinely failed or aren't appropriate. Discrimination, bullying, a significant breach of your contract, or a situation where speaking directly to the person involved isn't safe or realistic. These are situations where a formal process exists for good reason and where using it is entirely justified.

It also makes sense when you have raised something informally and nothing has changed, or when the issue is serious enough that you need it on record.

Some grievances should never become grievances and in all honesty, a majority of grievances I have been involved in should never have become a grievance.

I remember one clearly. An employee raised a formal grievance about the way a manager had handled an investigation they'd been involved in a month earlier. After a lot of back and forth it was agreed it would be investigated formally. This did nothing good for anyone. What usually happens here is that several people had time taken out of their schedules. The manager who'd conducted the original investigation had a direct tone, and it's possible the meeting had felt abrupt, but nothing had been raised at the time and this person was devastated to find out how they'd been perceived. They wanted to apologise and the employee raising the grievance didn't want to speak to them.

Looking back, what that individual needed was a way to give feedback and be heard. What they got instead was a formal process that didn't resolve anything and created more tension than it relieved. The specific situation solved itself a few months later as there was a restructure, so the individuals didn’t have to work together.

If someone came to me with that situation now, I'd help them think through what they actually wanted as an outcome. If it was to be heard and for things to change, I'd help them find a way to do that directly. If they weren't willing to do that, I'd be honest with them that a formal process was unlikely to give them what they were looking for.

The cost of unnecessary grievances

Formal grievances take time. They take time from you, from the people being investigated, from managers, from HR. They create tension and they go on record. In most cases they also damage working relationships, sometimes irreparably, even when the outcome is technically resolved.

That cost is worth it when the situation genuinely warrants it. When it doesn't, it can make things worse for everyone, including the person raising it.

The question worth asking first

Before you raise a formal grievance, it is worth sitting with a few questions. What outcome do you actually want? Is there a realistic way to get that outcome without going formal? Have you tried, or does it genuinely feel impossible? If the situation was resolved, what would that look like? What would make the outcome better by raising it formally rather than just speaking to the person?

Sometimes the honest answer is that what you want is for someone to acknowledge they got something wrong, or for a dynamic to change, or simply to feel heard. Those things are sometimes achievable without a formal process, and often more achievable that way.

That doesn't mean you should put up with things that aren't right. It means being clear on what you're trying to achieve and choosing the route most likely to get you there.

Where I come in

This is exactly the kind of conversation I have with people at the start of working together. Not to talk anyone out of raising a grievance they have every right to raise, but to help them think it through clearly before they do. What happened, what they want, what their options are, and what the likely outcomes of each route look like.

If you're in a situation at work that feels wrong and you're trying to work out what to do, that's a good point to talk it through. You can reach out via the contact page or you can book in a discovery call so we can chat it through.