Case Study: Investigations into Employee Complaints

A large public sector company was dealing with a bullying allegation made by an employee who had immediately taken stress-related sick leave. The HR department was struggling as there was very little detail in the employee's statement (not even names) and the employee refused to attend any meetings. The organisation was keen to carry out an internal grievance investigation as it was likely to be most cost-effective, yet the employee had raised concerns that this would be biased in the company's favour.

Three months after the initial complaint, no progress had been made. Departmental output had declined and morale was at an all-time low. We were asked to provide guidance.

When the employee was informed that an external investigator had been taken on, they agreed to co-operate and be interviewed. The employee claimed that they were being bullied and spoken to aggressively by other staff members: serious allegations and, clearly, the employee perceived they were being bullied.

Our fully trained investigator interviewed all parties including key staff and witnesses. Within a week, all interviews had been conducted and the interview notes had been returned, verified and signed by all parties.

During these interviews, the investigator found that the employee's performance had been lacking and the company's performance management had been poor. Instead of performance improving, it had continued to drop. The investigator could find no evidence of bullying and there were plenty of neutral witnesses to confirm this. It was clear that the inadequate performance management had alienated the employee to such an extent that they had genuinely felt they were being bullied.

The investigator wrote a robust and clear report with details of how the investigation was conducted, findings, recommendations and an executive summary. Interview logs, emails and statements were also included.

The employee accepted these findings and very soon afterwards left the organisation without any appeal. Our investigator also met with the company's HR director to discuss the findings and offer some useful advice on how they might avoid a repeat incident in the future.