Grievance letter alleging discrimination and harassment

[Sherly]

Hi, regarding the above I submitted a grievance letter alleging discrimination and harassment to my company 15 days ago.

Although the company acknowledged my letter, they are still not responding to me.

Trying to get more understanding around it, and after further research I'm thinking that I had to send 2 grievances one for direct discrimination and another for harassment and each had to be specific in the protected characteristic (ethnicity).

My grievance letter went a bit more general but it was clear referring to the protected characteristic, mentioning the equality act and employment laws, mentioning discrimination and harassment and providing evidence altogether.

Do you think that is still right? or do you think I should resend separately the grievances specific for direct discrimination and specific for harassment mentioning on each the protected characteristic?

Since I'm not having response from my employer, I'm going to initiate ACAS early conciliation. but I'm unsure if I need to be more specific in the grievances before doing that. I'm also conscious about the time limits.

Background: I was put on disciplinary process on a false allegation after i informally complained about my manager's treatment, my manager did the investigation and suspended me, disciplinary meeting took place without a decision and was said suspension to continue until decision is reached, but it's 2 months and still suspended, Employer doesn't provide any update and doesn't communicate with me at all.

I'll appreciate a lot if anyone could give me some light on this. Many thanks

[ULA]

Do you believe the alleged discrimination and harassment are linked, if so one grievance is enough however in setting this out you should have provided details of each and every instance, date, time (if possible) by whom and whether there were any witnesses.

You need to be able to prove that you have gone through a grievance process or at least tried to engage your company in one before going to ACAS and in which case, if you have not had any acknowledgment, then I suggest you follow up with a polite email to the company asking what is the status of your grievance. In addition in the same email I would also ask about the status of the outcome of your disciplinary hearing.

[Sherly]

Hi, regarding the above I submitted a grievance letter alleging discrimination and harassment to my company 15 days ago.

Although the company acknowledged my letter, they are still not responding to me.

Trying to get more understanding around it, and after further research I'm thinking that I had to send 2 grievances one for direct discrimination and another for harassment and each had to be specific in the protected characteristic (ethnicity).

My grievance letter went a bit more general but it was clear referring to the protected characteristic, mentioning the equality act and employment laws, mentioning discrimination and harassment and providing evidence altogether.

Do you think that is still right? or do you think I should resend separately the grievances specific for direct discrimination and specific for harassment mentioning on each the protected characteristic?

Since I'm not having response from my employer, I'm going to initiate ACAS early conciliation. but I'm unsure if I need to be more specific in the grievances before doing that. I'm also conscious about the time limits.

Background: I was put on disciplinary process on a false allegation after i informally complained about my manager's treatment, my manager did the investigation and suspended me, disciplinary meeting took place without a decision and was said suspension to continue until decision is reached, but it's 2 months and still suspended, Employer doesn't provide any update and doesn't communicate with me at all.

I'll appreciate a lot if anyone could give me some light on this. Many thanks

Thank you so much for your response.

Yes they are linked, my manager did both to me and the evidence goes in chronological order together for direct discrimination and harassment. My manager put me through the disciplinary process and currently I do not know of the outcome of my employment as I continue being suspended.

Since a continuous act of discrimination and harassment took place for several months, I understand the 3 months minus 1 day is considered from the last act of discrimination. On this, I'm also unsure to say that the fact the company is treating me this way, they are continuing with my manager discrimination since they are not responsing to me and since being suspended me puts me on further detriment and specially because all this came from my manager's alleged discrimination, if to date this still counts as direct discrimination. but I have a date as the last act of harassment from my manager that is still within the 3 months.

I've sent already a few emails requesting for an update. still no response provided.

Thanks a lot.

[ULA]

Can I suggest you try one further time to get an update on both the grievance and disciplinary by email and provide a deadline by Mon. If there is no response then you may want to consider contacting ACAS. I am not sure how much service you have even if you have less than 2 years discrimination on grounds of ethnicity can still lead to a potential claim being made, if you can substantiate the facts as I have set out in my post #2 with details of each and every instance, date, time (if possible) by whom and whether there were any witnesses.

[Sherly]

Thanks again for your kind response. yes, I'll contact them requesting for an update also my payslips they are not sending this to me for some reason and need to ask this again.

Also I've sent a SAR request to the last person contacted me from HR, to get hold the emails as evidence of the discrimination and to know about my data around the investigation, the disciplinary and grievance. I'm thinking to send a questionnaire on discrimination to search for evidence but I might need to check more on that still

Yes I'm employed for just over 2 years.

Thanks

[ULA]

Thank you for confirming length of service.

Wil be interesting to see what comes back from the SAR request but as I am sure you are aware this could take up to 30 days for your employer to provide the information, so you need to be mindful of ET timescales.