Grievance

[Beenthereboughtthetextbook]

Just wondering if anyone has any experience raising an informal or formal grievance at work? Did it get dealt with as expected or was it a waste of time? I've had fairly serious issues involving a heavily curtailed maternity leave, denied SPL and curtailed annual leave. I've quit but still at same institution so I'm wondering if raising a grievance is worth it.

i've been on a committee deciding what to do about a person who raised a grievance. this was an academic dept which had been v vague with management & responsibilities for years, but then grew so a team of 1 because 3 and a new HoD introduced a proper system for who did which jobs. but 1 person didn't want to follow the new procedures, which were slower but also fairer. he raised a grievance, it was all considered carefully & rejected.

So, that is one example but my advice is

• look carefully at what grounds you can use to raise a grievance and make sure that your case fits them


• make sure you have your documentation - emails promising things you didn't get etc


• at my uni, I believe we did consider the situation fairly & carefully and would have accepted the grievance if it had merit.

Do you have union representation or could you seek it?
If it is pregnancy/ parental related, the organisation Pregnant Then Screwed might be able to assist

Yes, the grievance was to be investigated by another department. The behaviour of my line manager and those around her was incredibly poor and there was a lot of email evidence.

I was offered a settlement to drop the grievance. I took it as the same week I was offered a post at another institution.

Grievance procedures are incredibly stressful so I'd way up if the stress is worth it. For example, do you think there's a realistic chance of this person/the department changing their behaviour?

Thanks very much for all your helpful replies.

@parietal I have drawn up a lot of evidence for maternity discrimination but there are verbal ones I have no evidence for i.e. I was asked to take a short maternity leave or else find cover myself. I felt cornered so agreed. Returned early to get the critical time sensitive bits done then asked for SPL which was refused. I do have evidence of requesting SPL which was ignored multiple times but it was verbally denied. I just hope the emails are enough to back up what was said verbally.

@AlwaysColdHands not a union member but I think I'll give Pregnant Then Screwed a message. Thanks!

@exemployee yes I've heard from a few people now that it's a stressful process so I'm undecided. I definitely don't want it negatively impacting anyone else so I'm more drawn towards putting in an informal grievance. Ideally I just want a written record however informal that I was wrongly treated. It's not really acceptable for staff to be clueless of or go against their institutions HR policies and I also don't want whoever comes after me to face the same issues.

Following this with interest. I currently have a HoD who behaves quite badly. I have brought it to the unions attention who mentioned that 6 others have also brought it up. I'm on a precarious contract so don't want to be in the firing line & wouldn't bring a personal grievance. My main worry is/ would be that the person who I complained about would devise new and more complex ways to torture me and/or not renew my contract.

@MakkaPakkas sorry to hear you're going through a similar ordeal. Whilst I've worked in the same institution a long time, I'm still on short term contracts so I know the feeling. If you've been there for more than two years you're entitled to the same redundancy benefits as permanent staff. But I'm not sure what protection there is before this. Hopefully your union can offer some advice on what should be done since there's already a record of his behaviour.

As someone who used to be Head of School, the truth is that we will often minimise or dismiss complaints if they're too burdensome and will achieve little. The current Head of School, a close friend of mine, also takes the same approach. For example, we see many complaints from the students every year, but we simply dismiss them because that's the easiest option. The truth is that many complaints are just people venting their emotional frustrations, rather than wanting to take a constructive and helpful approach.

I would advise the following for a successful complaint, based on what I've seen in the past;

• Keep the complaint simple and fact-based.
• Keep emotions and frustrations out of it.
• Try to keep other staff out of it.
• Have a simple and clear outcome in mind that will resolve the issue.

@teaandquiet do you ever worry that this approach exacerbates bad behaviour, leaving those in powerless positions even more vulnerable for having spoken out? Or do you make other moves to protect them?

@teaandquiet thank you for the pointers. I'm now gearing towards dropping it because even though I think I have a strong case, I'm no longer sure what it'll achieve as I'm leaving anyway. I have been ignored since I handed in my notice and so it's hard to remove emotions / frustrations from all of this. But I don't really know where to go from there if I don't raise the issues. It's infuriating to continually hear updates on how the university supports staff when I have received 0 support and in fact lost support I'm owed.