⏱️ 5 minute read
AI is making it easier than ever for employees to turn a workplace concern into a lengthy, legalistic grievance.
A complaint that might once have been a short email about a manager, rota decision or difficult conversation can now arrive with legal headings, formal allegations and references to discrimination, whistleblowing, harassment, victimisation, and constructive dismissal (to name a few!).
For already stretched HR and ER teams, that creates an increasingly real problem. Some of those issues might be legitimately significant. Others might simply be AI-generated wording that adds very little to the actual substance of the complaint. Either way though, someone has to work through and unpick it.
How then do you approach AI-assisted grievances to stop them making an equally AI-sized workload for your HR team? Xiao Pan, Trainee Employment Lawyer and LinkedIn Legal Influencer, shares her thoughts…
Start with smarter triage
This doesn’t mean dismissing a grievance because it looks AI-generated. Employees have always had help drafting grievances, from trade unions and advisers to friends, family, online templates and Google. AI is simply the latest addition to the list.
But, we have also seen first-hand how it can make a relatively straightforward complaint look much more legally developed and complex than it really is. The key is to cut through the drafting and get back to the facts:
- What does the employee say actually happened?
- Who was involved?
- When did it happen?
- What decision or behaviour are they challenging?
- What impact do they say it had?
- What outcome are they looking for?
From there, you can identify the issues that genuinely need investigating and assess the associated risks. A short ‘issues list’ can be particularly useful where a grievance is lengthy, repetitive or heavily legalistic. It keeps the investigation focused and creates a clear record of how you’ve understood the employee’s concerns.
A 20-page grievance doesn’t need a 20-page investigation
The length of a grievance doesn’t necessarily correlate to how complex it is. The risk with AI-assisted grievances is that employers can end up at one of two extremes.
At one end, a manager spots the hallmarks of AI and dismisses the grievance as exaggerated or generic. That’s risky, particularly if there are genuine allegations involving discrimination, whistleblowing, harassment, disability or health and safety buried amongst the legal terminology. At the other, HR treats every sentence as a separate allegation requiring its own investigation. That’s a surefire route to an unnecessarily lengthy, expensive and resource-heavy process.
The investigation should be proportionate to the substance of the complaint, not the amount of content an AI tool has helped generate. Ask focused clarification questions to get to the root of the issue before deciding the scope of the investigation.
Could informal resolution become part of the answer?
There’s another interesting development for employers dealing with growing grievance workloads. Acas has published a draft revised Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures, with a much stronger focus on resolving workplace concerns informally where appropriate.
Under the current Code, informal resolution largely sits outside the formal statutory framework. The proposed Code would bring it firmly into the main body of the Code. That is a small, but significant shift. If introduced as drafted, employers and workers would be expected to speak to each other with the aim of resolving concerns informally where appropriate before moving into formal procedures. Mediation and facilitated conversations also feature much more prominently.
It may not be a silver bullet, but this could be a potentially helpful change for employers dealing with AI-assisted grievances. AI makes it incredibly easy to formalise a workplace problem. But a more formal-looking complaint doesn’t necessarily require a more formal solution. Sometimes what sits underneath is still a relationship problem, communication issue or misunderstanding that might be resolved far more effectively through an honest conversation, mediation or another informal route.
There’s more reason to take notice
The Acas Code isn’t just best-practice guidance. Employment tribunals can currently increase compensation by up to 25% where an employer has unreasonably failed to comply with the Code, and reduce an employee’s compensation by up to 25% where their unreasonable failure is the issue.
Because informal resolution would sit within the statutory Code itself under the proposals, whether the parties appropriately tried to resolve an issue informally could become more relevant when a tribunal considers compliance with the Code.
The revised Code is still in draft and subject to consultation, but the direction of travel is positive for employers. Resolving workplace problems earlier and less formally is being encouraged, so for HR teams facing increasing volumes of lengthy AI-assisted grievances, that’s potentially very welcome news.
What should HR teams be doing now?
1 | Triage before investigating – strip the grievance back to the underlying facts and create a clear issues list. Don’t assume every legal label generated by AI requires a separate investigation.
2 | Clarify what’s unclear – if someone alleges discrimination but doesn’t explain why, or refers to whistleblowing without identifying the alleged disclosure, ask focused questions. Clarification should make the process more efficient, not become another layer of process.
3 | Keep investigations proportionate – a narrow complaint about a shift change isn’t the same as an allegation of sexual harassment or whistleblowing detriment. Match the scope, evidence and resources committed to the seriousness and complexity of the actual issues.
4 | Consider informal resolution – not every concern needs a full formal grievance process. Consider whether an early conversation, facilitated discussion or mediation could genuinely resolve the underlying issue – while recognising that serious allegations will still require an appropriate formal response.
5 | Equip your managers – managers are often the first people to receive a complaint, and they’re also in the best position to prevent many issues escalating in the first place. Make sure they can recognise when something needs escalating, have difficult conversations confidently and know when an informal solution might be appropriate.
6 | Keep an audit trail – record how you’ve understood the grievance, what you’ve decided needs investigating, any clarification you’ve sought, whether informal resolution was considered and why you’ve chosen the eventual approach. If the dispute later reaches tribunal, being able to explain and evidence your reasoning will matter.
How can we help?
AI might be making grievances longer, but it doesn’t have to make your process longer too. We help HR and ER teams take a proportionate, commercially sensible approach to complex grievances – from identifying the real issues and deciding investigation scope, through to reviewing outcomes and supporting your team through difficult cases.
We can also help you review your grievance procedures and equip managers to resolve workplace concerns earlier, where that’s the right approach. Give us a shout if increasing grievance workloads are putting pressure on your team.
Intelligent Employment
We’ve also updated the grievance policy on our Intelligent Employment document platform to include a clearer grievance form and process, including guidance on AI use, confidentiality and complex complaints to help you handle grievances more efficiently and consistently, while reducing data protection and procedural risks.
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This update is accurate on the date it was published but may be subject to change which may or may not be notified to you. This update is not to be taken as advice and you should seek advice if anything contained within affects you or your business.
