Outcome to grievance and appeal

[electronic1]

Hello

I raised a grievance to my employer and I received the outcome letter on Thursday. The employer has stated that I have 7 days to appeal in writing.

I raised a number of issues regarding excessive hours, bullying and harassment. The organisation has partially upheld two of the issues raised but they do not say what action they are going to take or how they intend to help me.

Unfortunately I have been off work with severe recurring depression and work related stress since end of February. Since I have received the outcome letter, my condition and function has deteriorated further.

I definitely want to appeal but I just cannot concentrate or function at this present time. Can I write them a letter saying that I wish to appeal but that medical symptoms are preventing me from doing so at this time? Can I request an extension of say a further week? Would this be reasonable or will the employer just say, tough you have not complied? I work for a global financial services organisation.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks for listening.

[Kati]

Re: Outcome to grievance and appeal

[MENTION=19071]teaboy2[/MENTION] and [MENTION=67649]matt3942[/MENTION] should be able to advise you I think xx

[teaboy2]

Re: Outcome to grievance and appeal

You would need to appeal, though you can request that the appeal hearing be heard at a later date (i.e. Returned to work) to allow you to recover from sickness first! Though the appeal hearing will have to be carried out within a reasonable period of time, say 2 weeks maximum unless your employer agrees to longer!

[electronic1]

Re: Outcome to grievance and appeal

You would need to appeal, though you can request that the appeal hearing be heard at a later date (i.e. Returned to work) to allow you to recover from sickness first! Though the appeal hearing will have to be carried out within a reasonable period of time, say 2 weeks maximum unless your employer agrees to longer!

Thanks Teaboy2,

I am not sure I fully understand, sorry. So does that mean I can just write to my employer now and say that I intend to appeal and tell them I will follow up with the reasons for my appeal in a further letter? Or do I have to still provide my employer with all the reasons for the appeal before this Thursday (7 days)? I am so stressed at this present time. I guess I am asking is a week acceptable to appeal if my health is making it difficult to complete the response in the time-scale, and should the employer allow me more time or is it set in stone?

Thank you

[teaboy2]

Re: Outcome to grievance and appeal

You will still need to provide your reasons for appeal, but you don't have to go in to details, just a brief outline why.

The reason you have 7 days is because its a term and condition of your contract under the disciplinary process, but this can be varied in order for both sides to be shown to act reasonably - especially when one is ill. So if you state in the same letter about your illness that you would like the appeal hearing to be put on hold for 2 weeks or until a time when your well enough to attend, then they would have to consider your request. Off course you can not delay it forever, so if your not going to be well enough within what the employer deems a reasonable period of time, then they can uphold the original decision.

Either way you'll still have to write your appeal letter giving brief outline as to what and why your appealing the outcome

To be honest am not sure what it is your trying to achieve here. They already upheld the bullying and harassment, therefore they have recongised this and therefore they have also recongnised that they have legal duty to protect you from it, by either disciplining the culprits or moving them to another department/shift etc, or both! They do not have to outline in the appeal outcome what they intend to do about them! So without knowing what your other grievances points were, i don't see what you can achieve by appealing the grievance. Though it would be helpful to know the full details and what your other points of grievance were!

[electronic1]

Re: Outcome to grievance and appeal

Hello Teaboy2

Thanks for your response. I raised a number of issues. I am not going to discuss all of them on here but I summarise the below.

The organisation did not uphold the bullying and harassment claim. This is quite personal to me so I am not going into detail.

Health and safety work related stress, working excessive hours they advise me that I have not broken working time regs but have said I have worked "long hours on some ocassions" They refer to the period September 2014 until February 2015 but in my original complaint I advised that I have been working excessive hours for three years. They actually refer to a period of time 1st jan 2014 until 30 Mar 2014 where they can see I worked an average of 40.52 hours over the period. This is backed up by a manager and three employees who advised in the investigation meetings that they have worked excessive hours for over three years and they all advised that they had never had lunch or breaks due to the volume of work. They cited my employment contract whereby my contract states "that in addition to your working 9.00am - 5pm on Monday to Friday xxx reserves the right to require you to work different or longer hours and/or at weekends or other public holidays if necessary for the proper performance of your duties. It is my understanding having spoken with HR that 9-5pm Monday to Friday are standard core working hours and that you and your peers within your business unit may at any time be required to work additional hours as the needs of the business reasonably dictate without additional remuneration".

This is the point I have tried to make in that at what point does it become "unreasonable" to work excessive hours but they have not answered that. It just seems they are saying tough, you have to work whatever it takes to complete proper performance of my duties.

The organisation partially upheld that the department was under-resourced.

Again in their response the business only refers to the period of Sept-Feb 2015 yet I have stated that we have always been under staff. All those interviewed agreed that they believe the department was understaffed and as explained in the previous section, worked excessive hours for 3 years and never had lunch or breaks. The only person who said there was not a staffing issue was the director. They said that they moved staff to deal with the under resource issues between sept 14 and feb 15 by moving team members and these issues were due to "migrations" As I say there is no acknowledgement that all staff have struggled for over three years. This was partially upheld.

Management did not undertake any steps to address your stress - Partially upheld

You believe you have been harassed xxxx - not upheld

They have tried alluding that it was my perception that I was being bullied and or harassed due to xxx being firm and assertive, my view is that this does not constitute harassment or bullying.

I have looked at the ACAS guide and how they describe bullying. I believe the way it made me feel was bullying.

I hope this gives you some insight. I will try and work on a response tomorrow if I can get my brain to engage.
Thank you.

[teaboy2]

Re: Outcome to grievance and appeal

Hello Teaboy2

Thanks for your response. I raised a number of issues. I am not going to discuss all of them on here but I summarise the below.

The organisation did not uphold the bullying and harassment claim. This is quite personal to me so I am not going into detail.

Health and safety work related stress, working excessive hours they advise me that I have not broken working time regs but have said I have worked "long hours on some ocassions" They refer to the period September 2014 until February 2015 but in my original complaint I advised that I have been working excessive hours for three years. They actually refer to a period of time 1st jan 2014 until 30 Mar 2014 where they can see I worked an average of 40.52 hours over the period. This is backed up by a manager and three employees who advised in the investigation meetings that they have worked excessive hours for over three years and they all advised that they had never had lunch or breaks due to the volume of work. They cited my employment contract whereby my contract states "that in addition to your working 9.00am - 5pm on Monday to Friday xxx reserves the right to require you to work different or longer hours and/or at weekends or other public holidays if necessary for the proper performance of your duties. It is my understanding having spoken with HR that 9-5pm Monday to Friday are standard core working hours and that you and your peers within your business unit may at any time be required to work additional hours as the needs of the business reasonably dictate without additional remuneration".

This is the point I have tried to make in that at what point does it become "unreasonable" to work excessive hours but they have not answered that. It just seems they are saying tough, you have to work whatever it takes to complete proper performance of my duties.

The organisation partially upheld that the department was under-resourced.

Again in their response the business only refers to the period of Sept-Feb 2015 yet I have stated that we have always been under staff. All those interviewed agreed that they believe the department was understaffed and as explained in the previous section, worked excessive hours for 3 years and never had lunch or breaks. The only person who said there was not a staffing issue was the director. They said that they moved staff to deal with the under resource issues between sept 14 and feb 15 by moving team members and these issues were due to "migrations" As I say there is no acknowledgement that all staff have struggled for over three years. This was partially upheld.

Management did not undertake any steps to address your stress - Partially upheld

You believe you have been harassed xxxx - not upheld

They have tried alluding that it was my perception that I was being bullied and or harassed due to xxx being firm and assertive, my view is that this does not constitute harassment or bullying.

I have looked at the ACAS guide and how they describe bullying. I believe the way it made me feel was bullying.

I hope this gives you some insight. I will try and work on a response tomorrow if I can get my brain to engage.
Thank you.

I don't see how working long hours or the department being under staffed amounts to harassment bullying. The working time regulations make clear the maximum working week over a period of 17 weeks most not be more than 48hrs on average, though employees can opt out of this, and a lot of employers include an opt-out form for you to sign at induction on your first day. 40.2 hrs is not long hours its no different to those on 40hr weeks with 1 hour lunch break unpaid, i.e. total 45 hours at work. Reasonable request to work addition hours would be an additional shift on your day off, or 1 hour after or before your normal shift ends/starts! So the employer is correct your hours are not excessive or long. And given you haven't disclosed all the issues, then i can not see how working 40.2hrs in general can be the course of your stress, though the under-staffing of the department won't help with moral and stress levels of employees.

Though i will say that failure to ensure employees get their rest break i.e. 20mins uninterrupted break each shift if working 6hrs or more, does amount to a breach of working time regulations. So if the employer is failing to ensure staff are able to take their lunch breaks (regardless as to if its paid or unpaid lunch break) then the employer is in breach of regulation 12 of the working time regulations 1998.

Without knowing the rest of the issues its impossible to determine or advise on the bullying and harassment point, except to say the issues of hours and being understaffed do not amount to bullying or harassment!