Disciplinary and Grievances: Ensure you handle the situation correctly and avoid complications

Employers can take disciplinary action if employees are, for example, not meeting targets or underperforming. Staff handbooks set out the specific steps that employers need to take including issuing warnings and proceeding to a formal meeting to discuss the issues and take any necessary action. It is essential that staff handbooks are reviewed with a view to ensuring that the disciplinary procedures are up to date. Employees faced with disciplinary action are entitled to have a representative with them at any disciplinary meeting and must be informed within a reasonable time limit of the outcome as well as the steps to appealing a decision.

Employees may also wish to issue a grievance for a variety of reasons and employers must follow a process to investigate the grievance and provide the employee with the outcome within a reasonable time as well as setting out the steps to appealing the decision.

To discuss your situation in more detail, whether as an employee faced with disciplinary action or wishing to raise a grievance and are not sure what to do or are an employer who want to instigate disciplinary action and want to ensure that they understand what is involved, please contact Liz Watt on 01905 900 919 or by email via Liz@bradleyhayneslaw.co.uk.