Hello, Please can you let me know if I can be Disciplined

while a grievance investigation is being carried out.

many thanks Dave.

If the grievance is in relation to the disciplinary issue, then it would probably be best practice for the disciplinary to be suspended pending the outcome of the grievance.

If the two are unrelated then I would continue the disciplinary process.

Sorry to hear this.

This situation happens many times.Politely it is down to your grievance generating a flurry of activity by HR professionals seeking to 'protect' the organisation from your 'attack', more accurately is likely to be unscrupulous HR professionals seeking to weaken your case, or make you feel defensiveor apologetic throughout the grievance.

This happened to me after I had reported a manager for bullying behaviour, the company tried their damndest to confuse issues and to try to tie them up together as 'evidence' my complaint was vindictive, so I was accused of placing an advert on a free company sales board that breached policy - I'm still not sure if it did because they had no paperwork!  I was naive and went ahead with the disciplinary hearing but my approach in the meeting was to be honest in the sense that I said 'I don't believe I have been intentionally at fault', 'What evidence do you have that I can see' and 'I can't comment without speculating' when my motives were questioned.   This hearing was sprung on me as I entered reception immediately before the grievance meeting.   The person leading the 'hearing' got increasingly aggressive and flustered and said that I was being 'obstructive' but I just calmly said 'I am being honest'.  (Luckily I also had paperwork showing that my manager had posted a homophobic joke about santa being a 'raving pufter' who raped men who were effeminate, on the same board - I showed my restraint by not showing this until the grievance!)

When the grievance came up 'dropping' the disciplinary was used by the company as a negotiation tactic to get me to withdraw my complaint (even though I had merely reported bullying behaviour!  Amazing how defensive some HR people are!)  I just calmy said 'I think that is a separate issue and it should be dealt with separately' My witness said he agreed and got his diary out for a 'meeting' to address this.  They backed off immediately and forgot about the 'disciplinary' offence

My advice though is to agree that the disciplinary meeting should happen but request suspention until after the grievance. Mention that you believe that the issue you are raising at grievance may have contributed to the disciplinary issue and that you feel it is sensible, therefore to clear that up beforehand.

My guess is that if you keep the issues separate, the process will be less stressful.  Good HR people will recognise the logic, weak or vindictive ones with be frustrated by it - both are better outcomes that you being so weakened the substance of your grievance is not investigated properly.