Grievance

A grievance is a complaint raised by an employee. This screen records what he said, who it is about if it is about somebody, who is handling it, by when, and every action taken along the way. The confidential flag is on the document itself, because the same category of complaint can be routine in one case and sensitive in the next.

Where

People Directory › Grievance

Who uses it

HR, on every complaint received

When

The day the complaint is received

Needs first

Employee Basic Information

What it is for

Complaints that are handled by conversation are complaints nobody can account for later. A worker says he raised it, the supervisor says he never heard, and there is no record either way. This screen gives the complaint a reference, an owner and a target date, and every action taken on it a dated line.

The header is the complaint: who raised it, what kind of matter it is, who it is against if it is against anybody, what he actually said, who is handling it and by when. The lines are what was done: the meeting held, the statement taken, the correction made, the answer given. Each line has a date, a name and what was done, and an optional date for the next step so an open grievance does not go quiet.

The confidentiality tick is on the document, not derived from the category. A pay query under harassment is sensitive. A pay query under pay and benefits normally is not, but occasionally it is. The person recording the complaint decides, case by case.

A grievance cannot be raised against the person raising it. Beyond that the screen holds few rules, so make the discipline procedural: nothing is resolved without a resolution written down and at least one action line, because a grievance closed with an empty resolution tells the next person nothing.

Every field, in plain words

Header

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Transaction No	The grievance reference	GRV-2026-0027	Required
Transaction Date	The day the complaint was received	11-Mar-2026	Required
Employee	Who raised it	EMP-0427 Imran Qureshi	Required. Pick him from the list
Employee Name		Fills itself. Leave it
Grievance Category	What kind of matter it is	PAY	Required. See the list below
Confidential	Restrict who may read this document	Ticked for a harassment or discrimination matter	Decide per case, not per category
Against Employee	The person complained about, where there is one	EMP-0088 Tariq Mehmood	Leave it empty where the complaint is about conditions rather than a person. A man cannot raise a grievance against himself
Against Employee Name		Fills itself. Leave it
Grievance	What the employee actually said	Overtime for the night of 2 March was not paid although the gate register shows four extra hours.	Required. Write it in his terms, not as a conclusion
Status	Where it stands	INVEST	See the list below
Assigned To	Who is handling it	EMP-0012 Nadia Saleem	Pick from the list. An unassigned grievance is one nobody owns
Assigned To Name		Fills itself. Leave it
Target Date	When an answer is due	25-Mar-2026	It cannot be before the day the grievance was raised
Resolution Date	The day it was resolved	22-Mar-2026
Resolution	The answer given to the employee	Four hours overtime verified from the gate register and paid with the March salary.	Fill this in before you resolve or close the grievance. A closed grievance with no resolution is useless to the next person who reads it
Remarks		Employee informed in person on 22-Mar-2026 and accepted

The Grievance Category values:

• WORK Working Conditions. Heat, lighting, drinking water, washrooms, canteen, safety equipment.
• SUPV Supervision. The behaviour or decisions of a supervisor.
• PAY Pay and Benefits. Short payment, missing overtime, a deduction the employee does not understand. The commonest category in a manufacturing company.
• HARASS Harassment. Normally confidential.
• DISCR Discrimination. Normally confidential.
• WORKLOAD Workload. Hours, shift allocation, staffing of a line.
• POLICY Policy Application. A rule applied to him and not to others, or applied differently from what the policy says.
• OTHR Other.

The Status values:

• OPEN Open. Received, not yet looked at.
• INVEST Under Investigation. Somebody is working on it.
• ESCAL Escalated. Passed up, because the person handling it cannot settle it.
• RESOLVED Resolved. An answer has been given and the employee has it.
• CLOSED Closed. Finished, with nothing further to do.
• WDRAWN Withdrawn. The employee took it back.

Actions taken

One line per thing actually done.

Field	What it means	What to put in it	Notes
Line	Line number	Fills itself
Action Date	The day it was done	14-Mar-2026	Required
Action By	Who did it	EMP-0012 Nadia Saleem	Pick from the list
Action By Name		Fills itself. Leave it
Action Taken	What was done	Gate register for 2 March checked against the attendance record with the time office	Required
Next Step On	When the next thing is due	18-Mar-2026	Fill it while the matter is open so it does not go quiet
Remarks

How to configure it

1. Record the grievance the day it is received, even if nothing has been done about it yet. Enter the reference, the date and the employee.
2. Pick the Grievance Category, and tick Confidential if the matter needs restricting.
3. Name the Against Employee only if the complaint is about a person.
4. Write the Grievance in the employee's own terms.
5. Assign it and set a Target Date the client's policy supports, commonly ten or fifteen working days.
6. Save at Open. Then add an action line for each thing done: the meeting, the record checked, the statement taken, each with its date and the person who did it, and a Next Step On date while the matter is live.
7. When an answer has been reached, write the Resolution, enter the Resolution Date and move the Status to Resolved.
8. Close it once there is nothing left, keeping the resolution and the action lines in place. They are the record.

Scenarios

A worker says his overtime for one night was never paid

Category Pay and Benefits, not confidential, no Against Employee because this is a process failure rather than a person. One action line for checking the gate register against the attendance record, another for the correction raised with payroll. Resolution says what was paid and when. The correction itself is made in payroll, see Employee Additional Payment Or Deduction.

A complaint about a supervisor that must not circulate

Tick Confidential, pick category Supervision or Harassment as the facts require, and name the Against Employee. Assign it to somebody senior enough to handle it. Keep the action lines factual and dated. Where the outcome is action against the other person, that is a separate Disciplinary Case against him, not a change to this document.

Fourteen men from one hall complain about the drinking water

One grievance per complainant is unnecessary paperwork. Record one grievance under category Working Conditions raised by the man who brought it, say in the text that it is on behalf of the hall, and list the action lines once. The important thing is the action lines, not the headcount.

A grievance has been open for two months and nobody noticed

That is what Target Date and Next Step On are for. Set a target when the grievance is raised and put a next step date on every action line while it is live, and an open grievance with a passed date is visible rather than forgotten.

The employee withdrew the complaint

Set the Status to Withdrawn, write why in the Resolution, and leave the action lines alone. Do not delete the document. A withdrawn grievance is still part of the history, and sometimes a pattern.

What it is connected to

• Employee Basic Information holds both the person raising the grievance and the person it is against.
• Disciplinary Case is the mirror image, a matter against an employee rather than raised by one. A grievance that is upheld against somebody often starts one.
• Employee Additional Payment Or Deduction is where a pay grievance is actually corrected.
• Payroll Attendance and Employee Attandance are where an attendance or overtime grievance is checked against the records.
• Profile Change Request is the right screen when the employee simply wants his own record corrected, rather than making a complaint.

If something looks wrong

• "It refuses to save, it says a grievance cannot be against oneself" - the Against Employee is the same person as the employee raising it. Leave Against Employee empty where the complaint is not about a person.
• "It refused the target date" - the target is earlier than the date the grievance was raised. An answer cannot be due before the question.
• "A resolved grievance has nothing in the resolution" - nothing forces the resolution to be written when the status is changed, so make it a procedural rule. A resolution and at least one action line are what make the document worth keeping.
• "A confidential grievance was read by the wrong person" - the tick restricts the document, it does not restrict a printed copy or a conversation. Handle the process as well as the record.
• "Nobody is working on it" - Assigned To is empty. An unassigned grievance has no owner and no target.