A grievance during the disciplinary procedure…
Sometimes it happens that an investigation has been undertaken and a recommendation to progress to a disciplinary hearing is made…when… the employee in question raises a grievance. Arggh! What now I hear you ask?! As frustrating as this can be, it’s important to keep an open mind about the grievance and not make any assumptions on the reason for it being raised.
So, what are your options…
The ACAS code states that you ‘may’ put the disciplinary procedure on hold, but there is nothing that states that you legally have to or you should. You need to consider what is the most reasonable action to take - and that will depend on what the grievance is about.
You’ll need to assess each case individually - what is the employee alleging? Are they raising an issue about something new, or is it something that you already know about? Is the grievance in any way related to the disciplinary?
If the grievance is unrelated then it’s often possible to run a grievance process separately, but at the same time as the disciplinary - the outcome of each doesn’t impact the other, so it doesn’t matter if one process moves quicker or completes before the other.
If the grievance is related to the disciplinary the best action might be to combine the processes and deal with them together - ensuring that the grievance gets the right attention and is dealt with properly.
Where there’s a claim of bias or conflict of interest on the part of the manager appointed as disciplinary officer, then one option is to just appoint a new disciplinary officer - rather than go through the process of a grievance… this is often a good solution to prevent the process becoming long and drawn out.
You could of course decide to ask the employee to raise their grievance as a grounds of appeal, and pick it up in this part of the process.
If the grievance is a claim of discrimination, then the best course of action will be to suspend the disciplinary process until the grievance process has been completed.
So actually, it is is less likely that you’ll have to suspend the disciplinary process that you might think!
Get in touch with Stanley & Davis to discuss how we can provide you with advice to support you during a disciplinary or grievance case.