Procedure
6 min read
The grievance that goes nowhere
A grievance is not a complaint. It is the first document a tribunal will read, and it sets the boundaries of everything that follows. Most are written in the wrong register, to the wrong person, at the wrong time.
Rory Aitken
Senior associate · Advocacy
In short
Include everything you may later rely on; omissions are noticed.
Facts, dates and documents — not motive and adjectives.
Send it to someone outside the complaint.
State the outcome you are asking for.
Where the first draft is usually written, and usually sent too soon.
The first document a judge reads
A grievance sets the perimeter of the dispute. Matters raised in it can be investigated, answered and, if necessary, litigated. Matters left out of it tend to look, months later, like afterthoughts constructed for the claim. Write it knowing that a stranger will read it long after everyone involved has left.
Write it in the register of a statement, not a letter of complaint. Dates, documents, what was said and by whom. Name the policy or term you say has been breached. Adjectives are the part that gets quoted back at you; facts are the part that gets answered.
Common mistakes worth avoiding
Sending it to the person the grievance is about; raising eleven points when three are strong; describing motive rather than conduct; and attaching nothing. A grievance with the relevant emails annexed is materially harder to answer with a general denial.
Give a realistic outcome. A grievance that asks only for an apology invites an apology. One that identifies what would resolve the matter gives the employer something to accept.
Write it as though the judge is the reader, because eventually they are.
What to do next
We will read a draft grievance and mark it up in a day. It is the cheapest point in any matter at which advice changes the outcome.
This note is general information about the law in England and Wales. It is not advice on your situation, and time limits are short — take advice before you act.
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