Employer dismissed me, now wants to hear grievance. Please help!

[Tootiredtosleep]

So, I raised a grievance with my employer back in July this year, and a further grievance re a protected characteristic.

They acknowledged the first grievance and invited me to a meeting with the Director (who the grievance was about - it's a small company - no HR). I asked for a reasonable adjustment, could it be held in written form and this was not acknowledged.

The further grievance re the protected characteristic (race), was never acknowledged by the company.

However, they invited me to a disciplinary whilst I was on sick leave, for gross misconduct/fraud. I was subsequently sacked. They were wrong on all counts of what they accused me of. However, for one small thing I had no evidence, and it was upheld as 'reasonable belief'.

The last correspondence from them re my grievances was 27th July 2024.

I have now filed a case at the tribunal for race discrimination, sex discrimination (they contacted my ex husband to find out information) victimisation (raising disciplinary after I done a protected act) and failure to provide an employment contract.

All negotiations with ACAS have failed. They won't communicate.

However, some 5 months since they acknowledged my grievance, they have now written to me to say they would like to hear these grievances and want me to attend a meeting. This is one month after I have been dismissed. It wasn't mentioned in my dismissal letter.

I know I need to show the tribunal that I have exhausted the grievance procedure, but surely contacting me after all this time, when I am no longer an employee is wrong? Can anyone advise?

I have tried to keep it brief, but can provide further details.

I'd just write back and say that you are not longer an employee so you are not able to follow their internal grievance process any more. And that all the details they need are in the original grievance and the subsequent approachs via ACAS.
This way you are not just declining without explaining

I took my employer to tribunal. My solicitor advised me to engage with every possible appeal and process going. I think you should go.

Agree to a strict time frame and ask for someone (a calm friend perhaps?) and agree to attend for 45 mins only. Write notes in the meeting and email them to yourself after (or photograph them).

I can imagine it is very stressful for you but you have to play the long term game that it shows they are a dreadful employer.

How can they resolve the issue via an internal
process when you’ve already been dismissed?

Ask for their Grievance policy/process. It should have a timeline for dispute resolution. If it does state that they are now out of time but that you would be happy to explore the grievance issues as part of discussions on settlement. I would be tempted to let the, run the process. It may be a valuable opportunity for you to see what they will respond with at tribunal.

If there were any witnesses to the behaviour or relevant documents, a grievance process will flush them out and you will know what the employer are likely to say at the ET.

The reason the court like you to exhaust internal processes is that they do some of the groundwork to find out what happened and therefore save time later down the line. If they come out with a biased outcome that ignores the evidence this will not be a good look at the ET.

In your shoes, if you have good evidence, I would lawyer up. Check if you have it on your house insurance. A really good employment lawyer will save you a lot of time and worry, and may be able to get you a much better settlement.

I'd mark this communication "WITHOUT PREJUDUCE"

Ask them to send the invite via ACAS mediation, they will have contact details even if they ignored them

And absolutely as PP said mark ‘WITHOUT PREJUDICE’

just respond that since ACAS are now involved they need to direct all communication through them.

It means you’re not saying you will or won’t do the meeting. If they haven’t engaged with ACAS already they are unlikely to resend the invitation through them then you can show you haven’t refused to engage.

Yup this. Generally the grievance procedure is for employees. You are not one now so it doesn’t apply. They are panicking, and rightly so by the sound of it. Carry on with your claim and good luck with it - let us know how it goes.

Not sure what you’re basing your “usually” on. The UK’s biggest employer has no such rules (as do none of the employers I’ve worked for as a senior HR professional for over 20 years).

You can ask for an uplift in compensation if they have not followed a grievance procedure. If you dont attend the meeting, you can't claim this uplift. So you should attend if possible. They may also make you a settlement offer.

Hi, HNRTT and it shouldn't make a difference to their crazy proposal but I'd strongly recommend not replying and saying you 'decline to attend 'in case anyone is hard of thinking' reads this and tries to use this against you.

Rather, flagged 'without prejudice', state something along the lines of

'You are happy to confirm your understanding that you had completely exhausted your previous employer's grievance process prior to them terminating your employment [or whatever the situation was, 'your employer had instructed you they had no grievance process despite your repeated efforts to resolve this prior to the termination of your employment?] .

You are also happy to confirm you have been informed your previous employer has refused to engage with ACAS' mediation.

And leave it at that.

Good luck.

Thanks @everyone. For clarification I do have a solicitor, but it's very hard to get hold of her.

I spoke to her this morning, and her advice was to exhaust the internal processes and attend the meeting if I can. She did say, however, that if I choose not to it won't affect the claim that has already been filed, and they will still represent me.

I'm so confused now, as some are saying to attend, and the solicitor.

My employer has lied, cheated, broken every rule they can. I don't trust them at all. So confused, but not mentally able to attend the meeting.

Can you have a Teams or Zoom meeting instead of seeing them in person?

If you are attending ask them to set a full agenda prior to attending. Document as much as possible. Take minutes. Let them start the discussion. After all it is this process. I suspect they the attempt to pay lip service to your grievance but nothing they do now can unwind the damage done. let them make the offer.

I think you should be allowed to bring someone with you to “observe” the meeting. They won’t contribute but they could make notes for you on what is said as it can be overwhelming to try to actively take part in a meeting like that AND retain all the information that is discussed.

Try not to stress, OP. Send the message saying you consider the grievance process is complete then consider their reply with your solicitor in good time. If you eventually decide to meet then it should be at a mutually convenient time so if you later choose to, ask them to suggest several dates and times and you'll tell them which is convenient. Ask them for an agenda and list of attendees and any questions they have and take a friend. But all of that is only if you choose to meet and first of all, I'd send the message I suggested above.

It might appear slightly messy as an employee can request a grievance up to three months after termination so it's perhaps not the best to decline, rather better to suggest you understand the grievance process is complete.

Good luck.

You are no longer employed by them so there is no 'internal process' to complete and you are no longer internal.

I wouldnt attend and would leave the case to go through the correct legal channels as that is why it has been set up.

What outcome could you ot they possibly hope to achieve by attending? If they want to make you a settlement offer then they can do that without the meeting.

What I imagine they want to do is bambozzle you you try and force you to drop the claim against them or to try and get further evidence of you being in the wrong. Either way its not in your interests to attend.

That would only be a union rep or another employee.

Are you certain that is correct? Great for the OP if it is as she won't need to worry.

I understand an employee has up to 3 months post-termination to raise a grievance so are you absolutely certain an employer cannot close off the 'exhausting a grievance' dimension by doing what they're doing?

If so, perhaps you could reassure the OP with a precedent so they won't worry? If not, it might be better for the OP to reply to say they understand the grievance process was exhausted or whatever the best spin is on whatever happened in the Summer then wait to read the response and discuss with their solicitor at their leisure.

Absolutely.
I would put it in writing.
Something along the lines of, "Whilst I was under your employ, the internal processes you refer to were not followed. As I am no longer working for you, they now do not apply to the situation."
You could add in something about now following the appropriate legal process, if you wish. But it isn't something that you should be making yourself ill over (or rather, not moreso).

It’s an ET claim that can be raised 3 months later (circumstances dependent). Once an employee isn’t an employee any subsequent grievance does not have to be considered.

The issue here is that the grievance was raised whilst OP was an employee, so in theory, the internal process is relevant and solicitor (who has more detail than we do) has advised OP engage.

OP, you’re paying a solicitor. I’m not sure why you aren’t following it. You’ve not shared enough info here to advise fully and you’re getting all manner of incorrect advice here.

Internal procedures are just that - internal to the organisation. As you are no longer an employee, and have evidence that as an employee you did try to engage with their internal procedures up to the point you left, I would assume that you can tick that particular box, although IANAL, nor an HR droid.

Could you attend the meeting via 'Zoom' or 'Skype'?

In any event I believe you can take a 'support' person to a greivance meeting although they cannot speak on your behalf.

The other thing is, once ACAS is involved and it could go to a tribunal, I think it has to be within three months of ACAS's contact. The company may be trying to spin the process out to push it beyond that deadline.

I would speak with ACAS and follow their advice.

N.B. I have no real knowledge on this!

My undertanding is that while you're correct that en employer does not have to consider a grievance by an employee post-termination, they can be held at fault if they don't - Base Childrenswear Limited v Lomana Otshudi 2019 .

I've seen the three month post termination employee window set out in guidance.

I'm unaware of anything definitive concerning the mirror situation of an employer trying to close off the risk in this way which is why I advised as I did.

I agree the issue here is about the actions that occurred during the employment and HNRTT but did the OP received a confirmation from the employer saying the grievance process was completed?

If so, great. If not, there may be a residual risk that the OP might want to manage hence my advice to reply to say they consider the employer's grievance process was exhausted and see what they reply with.