Set Up Your Policy and Documentation Framework

Before any employee files a grievance against you or your company, you need to have a strong framework already in place. Your written grievance policy has to spell out the process at each step and when those steps need to happen.

Set timelines for every stage of the process. Employees need to file a grievance within 10 days after an incident happens. Managers need to respond within 5 business days of receiving that grievance. The National Labor Relations Board has strict requirements you’ll need to follow if you work with unions. Missing their deadlines could mean that you’ll have some pretty big penalties later on.

Your documentation system should be set up and ready to go before you ever actually need it for a case. Create standard forms that can capture everything you need without turning them into long documents that nobody wants to fill out. Store everything in a safe location that protects employee privacy but still lets the right team members get to it when they need to review something. Different states have different requirements for how long you need to hold onto these records on file, by the way. California wants you to hold onto them for 3 years, as New York wants 6.

Businesses make a big mistake at this stage in the process. They forget to document verbal warnings or informal conversations with employees about performance or behavior problems. Then, when a grievance hearing rolls around, they have no paper trail to support the decisions they made. Every interaction with an employee matters once they file a formal complaint against you or another manager.

Working in a union environment means you need to remember the Weingarten Rights from 1975. Employees have the right to request union representation during any interview that could lead to disciplinary action against them. Denying this right just gives them strong grounds for an unfair labor practice claim against your company.

The size of your company and your industry will matter quite a bit when you’re putting together your grievance policy. A 50-person tech startup needs different procedures than a 1,000-employee manufacturing plant does.

Pick the Right Hearing Officer

The person you pick to run a grievance hearing is one of the most important decisions you’ll make in this entire process. Right from the start, it can’t be the employee’s direct supervisor (it won’t work). It also can’t be anyone who witnessed what happened firsthand. If there’s any personal relationship at all between the hearing officer and anyone connected to the complaint, that person has to come off your list of candidates completely.

You have a few options for how to structure this, and each one has its place. Most companies use a single hearing officer because it gets the job done. A three-person panel is another option that tends to be more helpful when the situation carries more weight. The best choice for your company can depend on the nature of the complaint and on how large your organization is.

Legal precedent plays a pretty big role in this. TheMcDonnell Douglas case is a prime example – it set up a framework that panels still have to follow when they review the evidence and come to a conclusion. The best strategy is to know which party has the burden of proof at each stage.

Smaller businesses usually run into a harder version of this problem. When everyone in the office already knows one another on a personal level, true impartiality is very hard to pull off. You might need to bring in a person from outside your organization just to make the process fair and to stay away from even the slightest hint of bias.

Some types of complaints need more attention after you’ve figured out who should run the hearing. Discrimination and harassment allegations are perfect examples, and they work much better if you bring in an external facilitator to take care of the process. Your employees need to trust that their complaints will get a fair shake from a person who’s neutral and doesn’t have any skin in the game.

Anyone who’s going to serve on one of these panels needs to have training before they sit in on a hearing. At a bare minimum, they should learn what unconscious bias is and how to spot it in their own thinking. Employment law basics matter too, and they need to know your company’s policies. And no matter how experienced your panel members are, they’re going to need enough time to get ready for each hearing, or they won’t be able to take care of the job well.

How to Schedule Your Hearing

Once you move forward with a grievance hearing, you’re on the clock. Most organizations will schedule these meetings between 10 and 14 days out, and this window actually matters for a couple of reasons. Waiting too long will make your employees start asking themselves if you’re actually taking their complaints seriously – and in some cases, they’ll even contact a lawyer to see what legal options are available to them.

Written notices need to go out as fast as you can after you make your choice. Make sure to include the exact date and time of the hearing, along with an agenda that covers the different topics you’ll be talking about. Everyone who’s involved should get at least 5 days to submit any documents or evidence that they think is relevant to their case – this window gives them enough time to pull together what they need without letting the whole situation just drag on and fester indefinitely. Managers will try to rush through the scheduling phase, and it ends up as an expensive mistake. What matters is staying careful without letting the weeks slip by. Studies have found that waiting longer than 30 days to hold the hearing makes employees far more likely to file legal claims. Nobody wants that mess – especially when it drains the time and resources you need to run your business.

Sometimes it makes sense to set up a quick preliminary meeting before the hearing. Pre-hearing conferences can help everyone get on the same page about what the main topics are going to be. It’s a chance to sort out any confusion ahead and help narrow down the complaint to just the points that matter most.

Postponement requests are going to happen, and each one needs to be handled. Grant too many extensions and your employees might think you’re not actually taking the issue very seriously. Denying each request will make your employees feel like you’re being unreasonable or maybe even unfair. The best strategy is to look at each postponement individually and document your reasoning, no matter which way you go.

Each state is going to have its own set of laws and requirements around this entire process. California expects employers to investigate complaints as fast as possible under their fair employment and housing laws, so make sure to review what your particular state mandates before you schedule anything.

How to Run a Fair Hearing

Every hearing needs to have a basic structure to it, or else the proceedings can fall apart pretty fast. Most hearings have opening statements from each side. After that comes the evidence portion, when each side gets to share whatever documents or proof they’ve put together. Witnesses come next if either side has any who need to testify on their behalf. At the end, you’ll get to the closing statements when everyone makes their case and makes their position obvious.

Employees can bring somebody with them to hearings like this – it’s their right. An attorney is a common choice, or maybe a union representative if that’s an option. A colleague can come along too and give a little moral support during the process. The Weingarten ruling from decades ago still influences how these hearings work, so you should review your company policy on this before the hearing starts.

Evidence is another part of your job, and you’ll need to sort out what’s actually going to matter for the case at hand. Just because a party wants to submit an email or a document doesn’t mean it’s automatically going to be relevant or helpful for your judgment. Hearsay will also come up quite a bit – that’s when someone tries to introduce the information they heard from another person instead of what they know firsthand. You’ll also want to make sure that any documents submitted to you are authentic and haven’t been changed or tampered with.

Managers and employees aren’t on equal footing during these hearings. This imbalance creates some problems. A quieter employee will have a very hard time speaking up when their boss or supervisor is sitting right there in the same room with them. You should watch for anyone who seems uncomfortable and make sure to give them a bit of extra time to get their thoughts together before they have to explain their perspective. Open-ended questions work pretty well here because they let each participant tell their full story without anyone rushing them through it.

Emotions can run pretty high during these meetings, so it’s helpful to try to be ready for whatever might happen. An employee might cry, or somebody might get angry and start raising their voice. Accusations can come out that nobody was prepared to hear. If any of this happens, it’s fine to call for a break. Give everyone a few minutes to calm down and pull themselves together before continuing. You should keep your own voice steady and calm the whole time, and remind everyone in the room of what the job of the hearing is.

Your Path to Better Workplace Relations

The ins and outs of grievance hearings usually feel pretty hard to manage when you first start looking at them. Those who’ve been reading along, though, have already covered plenty of ground from where they started at the beginning. The nervousness about a grievance has probably shifted into something more like confidence at this point, and this knowledge has genuine power behind it – it protects your organization from legal problems and also shows genuine respect for your employees. What probably felt like a mess of legal requirements and emotional challenges has become a roadmap that you can follow.

Not enough pros in HR talk about the emotional weight that these hearings put on everyone at the table. HR teams lose plenty of sleep worrying about whether they’re giving all sides a fair shake, and managers question almost every call that they make, and employees feel exposed and vulnerable when they file something officially. It’s a heavy load for everyone involved. But organizations that take care of their grievance process with genuine care (and treat it with the weight it deserves) file about half as many EEOC charges as the ones that don’t want to invest the time or the resources.

Every grievance that you get teaches you something helpful about your company culture and points out which policies need some adjustment. Workplace relationships take non-stop work. At HRDQ-U, we have a wealth of resources that are made just for HR professionals who want to continue improving in this area. We’re a learning community where you can connect with others who face the same challenges every day through our webinars, podcasts and blogs that are full of helpful advice.

If you’re a new leader looking to gain trust from your team, our webinar, A New Leader’s Playbook: Lead Change Through Tough Conversations, will help you build the necessary skills to lead effectively. Strengthening your team’s ability to work through disagreements in a productive way is easier with our Conflict Strategies Inventory from HRDQstore, and it helps employees figure out their personal conflict management style. Give them better tools for turning workplace tensions into opportunities for growth and collaboration!