Employers should treat any staff requests for flexible working as potential grievance letters that may trigger employment tribunal claims, lawyers have warned.
A recent series of tribunal rulings has established that employees do not have to explicitly notify their manager of a grievance before taking them to court. This runs contrary to disciplinary procedure guidelines from the government, which had indicated that a formal grievance letter was needed before proceeding.
Law firm Trowers & Hamlin said that employers should now look at most formal staff requests as potentially triggering the claims procedures. Failure to do so could lead to a compensation award being increased by 50% in a successful tribunal claim, it said.
Richie Alder, partner at Trowers & Hamlin, said: “Employees can only pursue claims if they have raised grievances in writing first, so if the definition of what constitutes a formal grievance letter is relaxed, the potential for claims is increased.
“Employers must know what now constitutes a grievance so they know when to initiate the correct grievance procedure. Employers are now at greater risk of being penalised for not instigating the grievance procedure when they should.”
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Plausibly, any written request for something that employers have a legal obligation to consider, but which they have previously rejected, now constitutes a grievance, Alder said.
Trowers advises that if an employee raises a matter in writing, the employer should clarify whether it is a grievance or not before beginning the statutory grievance procedure.
