Grievances

Grievance acknowledgement and invitation to meeting letter

Confirms a formal grievance has been received and invites the employee to a meeting to discuss it.

An employee has put a complaint in writing and asked for it to be dealt with formally, or the informal route has not worked. Acknowledge promptly, name who will hear it, and set a date within days.

Before it goes

  • You have the grievance in writing. If they raised it verbally, ask them to put it in writing, or write down what they said and ask them to confirm it.
  • The person hearing it is not the person complained about.

The letter

[COMPANY NAME] [COMPANY ADDRESS] [DATE] [EMPLOYEE NAME] [EMPLOYEE ADDRESS] Dear [EMPLOYEE FIRST NAME], Your grievance dated [GRIEVANCE DATE] Thank you for your letter of [GRIEVANCE DATE] raising a formal grievance about [SUBJECT, in neutral terms, e.g. the allocation of overtime on the [SITE] contract / the conduct of [NAME] towards you on [DATE]]. I am sorry that you have felt the need to raise this formally, and I want to make sure it is dealt with properly and promptly. I would like to invite you to a grievance meeting on [DATE] at [TIME] at [LOCATION]. The meeting will be held by [HEARING MANAGER NAME], [TITLE], who has not been involved in the matters you raise. [NOTE-TAKER NAME] will take notes. At the meeting you will be able to explain your grievance in full, say what you would like to happen to resolve it, and provide any documents or names of witnesses you would like considered. You have the right to be accompanied by a work colleague or trade union representative; please let me know the name of your companion in advance. If the date or time is difficult, tell me and we will rearrange. Following the meeting, [HEARING MANAGER NAME] may need to make further enquiries before reaching a decision, and will tell you the outcome in writing as soon as possible, together with your right of appeal. In the meantime, if there is anything you need to make coming to work easier while this is looked into, please tell me. Yours sincerely, [MANAGER NAME] [JOB TITLE] [COMPANY NAME]

Filling it in

Subject
State the grievance neutrally, in their terms. Do not characterise it, minimise it or answer it in this letter.
Hearing manager
Not the person complained about, and not their close ally. If the grievance is about the owner of a small business, an external HR adviser hearing it is the honest answer.

What the law says

  • Acas Code of Practice, paragraphs 31 to 40: hold a meeting without unreasonable delay, allow the employee to be accompanied, decide and communicate in writing, allow an appeal.
  • Employment Relations Act 1999 s.10: the right to be accompanied at a disciplinary or grievance hearing by a colleague or trade union representative.
  • Employment Rights Act 1996 s.1(4)(b) and s.3: the written statement must say how to raise a grievance.
Guidance, not legal advice. Employment law moves; check the current position before relying on any of it, and take advice on anything that could end someone's employment.

What turns this letter into a claim

  • Do not sit on it. The Code says without unreasonable delay; a week to the meeting is about right.
  • Do not start a disciplinary process against the complainant in response. If there is a genuine separate conduct issue, deal with it separately and be able to show the two are unrelated.

Questions people ask

What if the grievance is about me?

Someone else hears it. In a business too small for that, bring in an external HR adviser or consultant to hear it and recommend an outcome. The employee has to believe the process is fair, and so does a tribunal.

What if they raise a grievance in the middle of a disciplinary process against them?

The Code allows you to pause the disciplinary to deal with the grievance where they are related, or run them in parallel where they are not. Decide, record why, and tell them.

The letter, with the names already in

Employ AI drafts letters like this one from the employee's record, so the dates, service and pay are already right, and the disciplinary module writes the invitation and outcome letters from the case itself. All 44 letter families, 49 UK policies, GPS clock-in, rotas, leave and timesheets: £2.50 a month plus £1 per employee. 14 days free, no card.

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