Employee grievances are normally about things like:

• Discrimination (including bullying and harassment)
• Working hours and breaks
• Problems with health and safety
• Work relationships
• Changes in working practices or organisational change

There are a few types of complaint which you can’t make by using a grievance procedure. For example, you can’t use a grievance procedure to complain about being made redundant, or the fact that your employer is ending a fixed term contract rather than renewing it. If you are in this position, you may want to get some further advice.

You are unlikely to get money compensation as a result of using a grievance procedure (unless your grievance is about an underpayment of wages and your employer agrees you have been underpaid). For this, you will usually need to take the case to an employment tribunal. 

The main purpose of using the grievance procedure is to formally ask your employer to resolve a problem at work.

Raising a grievance enables employees to complain about problems in the workplace and get them resolved internally by management before they develop into major difficulties.

You may want to use a grievance procedure to:

1. Improve your work situation in the future

A successful grievance can resolve a problem so that something about your work improves in the future.

It is important to tackle a problem within a reasonable time of the problem occurring.

Sometimes people are tempted to wait until it is less frightening to complain, perhaps until after the offending colleague leaves or is moved to another department.  But that isn’t usually a good idea - if you make a complaint about being treated unfairly or bullied at work, your employer is under a duty to investigate and make a decision. If you wait until the colleague leaves, your employer will not be able to do anything about it.
 

2. Complain if you are being unfairly disciplined

If your boss takes disciplinary action against you, and you think the real problem is that they are discriminating against you, you can use your work’s grievance procedure to complain. 

Your employer should consider putting the disciplinary action on hold and hearing your complaint first. Where the disciplinary and grievance cases are related, the Acas Code of Practice says it may be appropriate to deal with both cases at the same time, and you can ask for this to happen.

If the disciplinary procedure has been completed and you have been given an unfair disciplinary warning, you can appeal. You can also complain about the discriminatory treatment, and ask that the appeal and your grievance are heard at the same time.  If your complaint is simply that you think the outcome of the disciplinary action is not correct then it is usually better to appeal against the outcome rather than bring a grievance.

3. Complain if you have been disciplined under a disciplinary policy which doesn’t give you a right of appeal

All disciplinary procedures should give you a right of appeal. If yours does not, you can raise a grievance as a way of appealing the result of the disciplinary. In your complaint, you will need to point out that there is no appeal in the disciplinary procedure and ask your employer to treat your complaint as your appeal.

1. Could the problem be dealt with informally?

Before you make a complaint, it is important to think clearly about whether it’s what you want to do. Consider discussing the problem informally with your manager or another suitable person at work before raising a formal complaint.

2. Does your employer offer mediation?

Your employer may offer free mediation to solve workplace problems, especially if they are a larger employer. This means getting an outside mediator to discuss the issues with both of you. Generally, this would happen at an early stage, before the formal grievance process starts, but it can be useful at any stage. Check your grievance procedure to see if your employer offers this option.

3. Are you doing it for the right reasons?

You should only use your work’s grievance procedure if you have a good reason to. Don’t do it in order to get back at someone because you’re angry.

4. Are you being fair? 

Take a step back from the situation. Take a few deep breaths. Think objectively about what or who you are unhappy with, and why. It may help to talk things through with someone you trust to get things in perspective.

5. What do you want to achieve?

Think about the outcome you want. 

6. What would you do if you were the employer? 

If you can suggest a way forward when you make your complaint, it shows your employer that you are willing to be helpful and you are more likely to get at least some of what you want.

7. Be prepared

If the problem you are complaining about is still happening, keep a diary of each event as a record. Keep safe any other evidence, like emails and letters. 

Familiarise yourself with how your work’s grievance procedure works and make sure you have read any bits of your contract which may be relevant.

8. Be confident

When people make complaints, they often start to doubt they are doing the right thing. If you are unlucky, your employer might say things like “Are you really going to make a fuss about this?”

Be prepared to be discouraged at each stage of the process and get as much support as you can from friends and colleagues who are on your side. Remember that if you give up, your situation is unlikely to get any better and it could weaken any complaints you raise in future. 
 

Make your complaint promptly

Check your work’s grievance procedure soon after the problem has occurred because most grievance procedures have a timescale for bringing a complaint. This is often three months or less from the date the problem happened or started. If you leave it too long, you may find you can no longer use the procedure as a way of sorting out your problem. That said, it may still be worth bringing the grievance outside of the time limit if there are good reasons that you did not do so earlier.  Your employer may be willing to hear the grievance even if it has been brought late.

Make sure your employer deals with your complaint promptly

If your employer is not doing anything about your complaint swiftly, chase them up in person, by phone, or email to find out what’s going on. Keep a record of when you did this and what you said.

If you are concerned that the problem might not be solved by using the grievance procedure, you might want to take the case to an employment tribunal. 

Although note that not all grievances can be taken to employment tribunal. Contact Acas early in the grievance process to get advice about whether to take your case to an employment tribunal as well. If you are a member of a trade union, contact them for advice. 

If you want to take it to an employment tribunal, you must bear in mind the time limits for doing this. The basic time limit for an employment tribunal case is 3 months less 1 day from the act you are complaining about (or the last act if it is ongoing). The clock does not stop running because you have lodged a grievance. The government plans to change the time limits for bringing an employment tribunal claims to allow extra time to do so. It is expected that from October 2026 you will have 6 months to lodge a claim. You must also use Acas’s Early Conciliation service before you can start a claim in the employment tribunal. For more information about this, see Can I go to an employment tribunal?

If your work’s grievance procedure is taking too long and it looks like you might miss the deadline to go to the tribunal, start your tribunal claim. You cannot afford to wait or delay. If you are in this position, try to talk to an experienced adviser, or your union if you are a member, as well as contacting the Acas Early Conciliation service.

It’s a good thing if your employer can deal with your grievance before you go to an employment tribunal, but not if it means you missing the tribunal deadline. You are the only person responsible for staying within the time limit for making a claim to an employment tribunal.

If others have a similar grievance

If you and another employee have made a very similar grievance, then your employer should still follow the grievance procedure. They should also keep all information about your grievance or what happened to you confidential, and they should consider what each of you wants as an outcome.

Many problems at work are best sorted out informally. The benefit of the informal approach is that it is quicker and less daunting than making a formal complaint, and is less likely to damage your working relationships. See how to resolve problems at work informally.

If it is serious, or things have already gone too far, it may not be possible to sort out informally. The same applies if the only person who’s in a position to sort it out is actually the person causing the problem. In these situations, it may be better to go straight to the formal stage of your grievance procedure.

You might find that if you touch on anything which could be seen as discrimination, your boss might not want to deal with the problem informally. Employers are often wary of dealing with discrimination informally because it is such a serious issue and, if they don’t deal with it properly, they can get in a lot of trouble. Sometimes it is company policy to always deal with potential discrimination in a formal way.
 

Next we will look at the three steps in the formal stage.

Write a letter to your employer that clearly sets out the problem and, if possible, explains what you want them to do to resolve the problem.

Many larger employers will have a form which they expect you to complete. They cannot refuse to deal with a letter from you, provided that it is clearly a letter of complaint. But if it is easy to get hold of your employer’s grievance form, it is probably better to use that.

Whether you write a letter or use your employer’s form, you should make sure that it is dated and signed, and that you keep a copy. You can usually send in your grievance by email.

Your grievance procedure should tell you who to send your complaint to. If it is the person you are complaining about, and the grievance procedure doesn’t give you an alternative, you will need to ask whoever is responsible for staffing (also known as Human Resources or HR) to tell you who to write to.

What should you put in your grievance letter? 

• Explain what the problem or behaviour is that you are concerned about. Try to be factual and maintain a professional and neutral tone. Explain how certain behaviour has made you feel, but remember that personal attacks on other staff or offensive language will undermine what you are saying. Remember that you want people to read your complaint and want to try to solve it.
• If you think you have been discriminated against, spell out that you think the behaviour you are complaining about is discrimination.
• Include enough detail to enable your employer to deal with the complaint. Include the dates of incidents and who was involved. Your employer is unlikely to look at complaints which are more than a few months old, unless they are part of a long chain of events, or there is a very good reason why you are only raising them now.
• If you have more than one complaint, start with the most serious. After your most serious complaint, it is often useful to list your complaints in date order.
• If your complaint is lengthy, use sub-headings, and number your paragraphs and pages to help those reading it.
• If you tried to resolve the problem informally first, explain what you did and say what the outcome was.
• Try to stay focused on what you want as the outcome - the solution you would like. Say as clearly as you can what steps you would like your employer to take to make things work better for you. You may not get everything you want, but it is always worth asking.
• Include copies of any supporting evidence with your letter of grievance.

When your employer gets your letter, they should invite you to a meeting to discuss your complaint reasonably quickly. Often the grievance procedure will set a timetable for this meeting, such as within 5 or 10 working days of receiving your letter. 

There may be a delay while your employer investigates what you have said, for example, by talking to a colleague if you have made a complaint about them.

You must make every effort to attend this meeting. People often stall because it is stressful, but postponing the meeting can end up being more stressful. If you miss meetings, your employer may make a decision without meeting with you, meaning that you won’t have had the chance to put your views across fully. And if you end up going to an employment tribunal later, any compensation you get may be reduced, because you haven’t gone fully through your employer’s grievance process.
 

Taking someone with you to the meeting

The law requires your employer to allow you to bring a colleague or trade union representative to the meeting. If you are going to do this, let your employer know in advance so they can make any necessary arrangements, such as ensuring the colleague or trade union representative can attend. 

You do not have a right to take anyone who isn’t from your workplace or trade union, for example, a friend or partner. If you would prefer that (or have a strong reason for such a request, for example, you need help with a disability) you will need to ask if it’s OK.

If the person you have asked to come with you cannot attend the meeting, you have a right to move the meeting by up to 5 working days so that they can attend.
 

Witnesses and evidence

Think about what you will need to prove the facts of your case (the law calls this ‘evidence’).

• If you have documents you want to use, find them and sort them into date order so that you can easily use them at the hearing.
• Check if your grievance procedure says that you need to provide copies of the documents to your employer in advance. If it does, then you need to do this.
• If there are documents you think are relevant and that only your employer has access to (for example, an occupational health report about you which you haven’t seen) ask your employer for a copy.
• If you want a colleague to be a witness, you should ask them beforehand, and get them to give you a short, written witness statement. Tell your manager the names of any witnesses you want to have at the meeting, so they can arrange for them to be released from work.
   

Taking notes at the meeting

It is a good idea to ask for a note-taker to be present. This is very helpful as it means there will be a proper record of the meeting and this will allow you to focus fully on what is being said. 

During the meeting, if you or your employer says something that you think is particularly important, ask the note-taker to record that point.  If your employer or witnesses are talking too quickly for your note-taker to keep up then politely ask them to pause or slow down.

If there isn’t a note taker, ask the person accompanying you to take notes. If you are alone, ask for a pause whenever you need to make a note yourself. 

You should be given a copy of the notes after the meeting. If you are not, make sure you ask for them. 

When you get the notes taken by a note taker, check them as soon as possible to make sure they are accurate. If you took a companion with you, you may also want to discuss the notes with them. Tell your employer about any inaccuracies in the notes as quickly as you can. 

You can ask if you are allowed to record the meeting, but many employers will not agree. Generally, it is not a good idea to make a secret recording of the meeting and there may be issues with data protection, if people do not want to be filmed. Although employment tribunals often do allow these recordings to be used - if your employer finds out, they might dismiss you for doing this. 
 

If an AI tool is used to make notes

If an AI tool has been used to make a note of the meeting, it is important to check that note to make sure it is accurate ASAP. This is because the AI tool may not always correctly pick up what was said, and this could become relevant in your employer’s decision.

At the grievance meeting

At the meeting, your employer should give you the opportunity to discuss your problem and to say how you want them to sort it out. They should remain impartial and consider all the evidence.

When they have heard what you have to say, they may end the meeting but ask for you to give them time to investigate your complaint before meeting with you again.

If you are not satisfied with the way that your work has dealt with your problem, you can appeal. 

If you think you may go to an employment tribunal, it is advisable to appeal against your employer’s decision even if you need to start the employment tribunal process while your appeal is being considered.

This way you can show the employment tribunal that you have used all the internal processes available to you.

If you decide to appeal, you should tell your employer as soon as possible. You must do this in writing and within the deadline set in the grievance procedure. This is often 5 or 10 working days, but check.

You are responsible for staying within the time limit for an appeal. So, it is important to be aware of the date when you receive the employer’s decision. If you receive the response as a letter rather than email, make sure that you keep the letter and the envelope it came in. Make a note of when you actually received the letter in the post (it is best to mark it on the letter or its envelope). This is because the time for an appeal will run from the date you received the decision, and sometimes the date on the letter is not the same as the date it was posted.

Do your best to get your appeal to your employer within the time limit, or they may refuse to look at your appeal. If you have missed the deadline, explain why it is late.
 

What to put in my appeal letter

Some employers have a two stage appeal process. The first stage is when you tell them you are going to appeal, and the second stage is when you tell them the reasons (the law calls this the ‘grounds’) for your appeal. If you are not certain whether your employer operates a two stage appeal process, it is important that you cover both points in your letter. So tell them that you are going to appeal, and then set out all the reasons for your appeal.

Don’t just repeat what was in your original grievance letter. You need to respond to the decision they have made. Highlight what you think the decision-maker overlooked, or didn’t take enough account of, or didn’t understand about your complaint.

You may need to send your employer any additional paperwork that supports your case. Again, there is probably a time limit in the grievance procedure for this.

Make sure you keep a dated copy of your letter of appeal.

Meeting to hear your appeal

Your work should then arrange another meeting to discuss your appeal, with someone more senior if possible. In a small workplace, this could be the owner, a board member or a management committee member. In a large organisation it should be someone more senior than the person who heard your grievance, or it may be a panel of perhaps three people. The same rules apply as for the first meeting. 

After the appeal meeting, your employer should give you their decision in writing.  You are unlikely to have any further rights of appeal in your workplace after this.

If your problem isn’t solved by using your work's grievance procedure, you may want to take it to an employment tribunal. But employment tribunals can’t deal with all the different types of problems that grievance procedures cover. For more information and step by step help, see Employment tribunals.

You don’t have to tell a future employer about a grievance you raised or about any claims made to an employment tribunal. If your former employer mentions them in a reference, this is likely to be post-termination unlawful victimisation, if part of your grievance or employment tribunal claim involved unlawful discrimination.

If your new employer treats you less favourably or withdraws a job offer because they discover you have brought a tribunal claim or a grievance for unlawful discrimination, that would also be unlawful victimisation.

What if my employer doesn’t have a grievance procedure? 

Every workplace must have a grievance procedure. If your employer doesn’t have their own one, they must follow the Acas code of practice on disciplinary or grievance procedures. Every employer’s procedure must be as fair as the Acas code. 
If your employer doesn’t have their own procedure (or if you can’t find it), follow the basic steps set out in this guide.

Do I have to follow my work’s grievance procedure?

If you want to raise a grievance it is usually best to use your employer’s process. However, if they have a specific form to start the process, you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. You can just write a letter as long as you make it clear that you are writing a raise a formal grievance.

How long do I have to raise a formal grievance?

Employers won’t usually investigate problems that are more than a few months old, unless it is a part of an ongoing problem, like bullying. So you should make your complaint promptly. And definitely within the time limit to take the issue to employment tribunal.

Can I be sacked for raising a grievance?

No. An employer must handle your grievance fairly and not punish you for raising it as long as you have raised it in good faith. If you lied or were raising it for malicious reasons they could sack you.  If your grievance is about discrimination, you have extra protection from being treated unfairly because of it.  
 

What should I include in my grievance letter?

Focus on facts, dates, and people involved. Use a professional tone, state how the issue affected you, and clearly explain what outcome or solution you are looking for. See What should you put in your grievance letter?  for more help.
 

The Code –  this refers to the Acas Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures. This sets out how employers should deal with complaints made by their staff. By law, your employer should deal with your problems in the way set out in the Code, and if they don't they may have to pay you more compensation if you win an employment tribunal claim.

Employment tribunal - the specialist court where employment disputes are decided.

Grievance -  a concern, problem or complaint you have about your work.

Harassment –  a form of discrimination. It involves unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal behaviour relating to one of the types of discrimination. For more help see Unfair treatment at work.

Protected characteristic - a particular personal characteristic or feature about you that the law protects from discrimination. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation. For more help see Unfair treatment at work.

Victimisation – is when you are treated badly at work because you have raised a grievance about discrimination or because you helped someone else to do so. 

Disclaimer

The information in this guide applies to England and Wales.

The law is complicated. We recommend you try to get advice from the sources we have suggested if at all possible.
 

Acknowledgements

This guide was written by Advicenow and updated thanks to funding from the Ministry of Justice under the Online Support and Advice Grant.  

We would like to thank all those who provided advice and feedback on this guide, particularly Rebecca Thomas from 42BR Barristers, and editorial teams at Thomson Reuters who kindly peer reviewed this updated version.