Can anyone point me in the direction of some guidance on how best to approach a colleague who is a serial grievance raiser. On the one side they always have grounds but on the other I also think they may be laying the foundations.
Hi Ann-Marie
Has anyone (in management, not HR) sat down with this person and asked them why they feel that grievances are the only way for them to be heard?
Emily
Have been in a similar situation and you don't have a massive amount of choice but to keep investigating the grievances and feeding back. They have a right to do it and it's difficult to remove this right without clearly evidence that it is vexatious ie they all have no evidence.
However it might be worth having a 1-2-1 conversation with the individual on a relaxed informal basis to understand if they are happy and to point of the number of grievances they have raised and see if there is something underlying?
I have heard of someone being disciplined for numerous unfounded grievances - but it appears your employee has grounds for raising grievances. I wonder why no one has sorted out the problem yet?
I completely agree, but what if one colleague is being deliberately provocative to make another colleague react in such a way that then enables them to raise a complaint - could that not reasonably be perceived as them using the grievance procedure to bully others?
If someone is behaving in a very provocative way then deal with it. I am not sure I would class it as bullying however and it depends what they are doing as to how/if I would deal with it
Its why I suggested mediation as you clearly have a personality clash here.
We had a similar situation a few years ago where we kept getting grievances raised by one individual about every manager they were managed by. In the end, we dismissed the individual for bullying and inappropriate behaviour (they reduced some quite robust managers to tears at times) - and won the subsequent case at Tribunal. Wouldn't recommend it as a go-to position but can be done as a last resort.
