The most common themes for grumbling at all the recent employment law events I have attended have been the same: the youth of today; why the UK’s railway infrastructure is seemingly made of chocolate; and the tide of AI-assisted employee grievances.
Can’t help you with the first two, sorry, but somebody will have to do something about the third before the tension between the time they take to deal with and the resources which most employers and the ET system can afford to devote to resolving them becomes too great.
We have all seen them – turgid great things full of legal and case references, some of them genuine, but despite their length, often lacking specifics of what the employee is complaining about and what they want you to do about it. I offer three principal tips for employers trying to work out whether they are dealing with the real thing or not:
(i) AI complaints usually demonstrate spelling and grammar skills way beyond those of the purported author;
(ii) they almost all include somewhere towards the end the phrase “I remain committed to my role” in game but ineffective rebuttal of the clear message from the preceding 27 pages that nothing is further from the truth. A subset “tell” of AI involvement is that the writer is “committed to a constructive resolution”, but tends not to be able to articulate what that means beyond generic references to “support”, “safe working environment” and so on;
(iii) most AI-drafted grievances adopt an unpleasantly snippy tone, but they still cannot match the searingly sanctimonious phrasing of a real lawyer – it is good to know that human representatives still retain the edge in something, I guess.
So sitting in HR you are faced one day with something very lengthy, usually lacking necessary detail of what is said to have happened and what the desired outcome is, and which sounds tonally like a two-fingers to the business even if that is not what the words say. Where do you even start?
(i) Take a deep breath. Assume that the employee has only resorted to AI to draft their grievance because they lack the vocabulary or confidence with words to do it themselves. Try not to rise to the tone, because it probably isn’t theirs.
(ii) Also rise above the legal detail, such as there is, at least to start with. Remember that the purpose of a good faith grievance is to seek recourse or a “fix” for something. Neither the grievance nor any subsequent investigations are ends in themselves, merely means to an end, being the appropriate disposal of the employee’s concerns. If you can get to a resolution which is satisfactory all round without compounding the existing damage, why not?
(iii) But to get there, you generally need to know the granular specifics of what is being said, just not necessarily whether it is true. You will obviously minimise the risk of blow-back from the employee if you know exactly what they are seeking to achieve. Bullying, harassment, mismanagement, hostility, discrimination, victimisation and so on do not exist just as abstract states of mind or general atmospheres, but only through the very particular acts or omissions of colleagues. Enough of those individual incidents are going to have to be looked at to form a view as to whether they happened as described and if so, why. That means giving the person or people accused sufficient detail that they can reasonably be expected to admit, deny or explain each one individually. Blanket allegations of bullying, hostility, etc. will inevitably attract blanket denials and then no-one has achieved anything from the investigation, with the possible exception of dynamiting what little remained of the necessary working relationship.
(iv) Investigating a complaint without those specifics is a fool’s game. You do not know what facts or mindsets you are looking into, or whether your enquiries are in any way necessary or relevant to the basic question of resolution. Therefore as and when you receive the “AI-Special”, we suggest seeking a meeting with the complainant. This is not disciplinary, not formal, not yet even part of the investigation process, but simply to allow you both the opportunity to separate the facts from the tone and to understand specifically the behaviour which is complained of, the whos, the whats and the when’s of the grievance. I say “both”, because we cannot be alone in the impression that a number of employees submitting AI grievances are as much surprised by their content as is the employer. This is a gentle meeting – “I just want to understand the particular points you want us to investigate here. I am not passing any views, just scoping out the job. After we have some common ground on that, then we can both get on with the formal grievance proper if we need to”.
(v) Your employee may decline to play ball. He may secretly recognise that he cannot substantiate half of what AI has had him say, or he may realise that in the cold light of a reasonably forensic examination by the employer, it’s all going to sound fantastically trivial. He may then hide behind AI’s finest and not help you find a way through it at all. Perversely, this should not be a cause of concern for the employer or the investigator. It is not for them to make the employee’s case or to comb through his exchanges with his manager to work out what exactly in it may have got up his nose. If an allegation lacks examples or specifics or otherwise fails the “recent, relevant and resolvable” test, the investigator can just move on.
(vi) Alternatively, perhaps even before pressing for those specifics of his complaint, the employer can propose addressing the grievance through mediation. In that way, AI’s interminable recitation of the last umpteen years’ reversals and disappointments at work can potentially be side-stepped altogether. What complainant would not welcome skipping past the inconvenience of actually having to evidence his concerns and moving straight to how they may be resolved? [The answer to that not entirely rhetorical question is generally someone who is either (a) keen to put the person they accuse through the mangle; and/or (b) actually trying to leave on terms without saying so. In either case, putting them on the spot through a very early question as to the details of what they want can be illuminating. What exactly needs to change for you to consider your grievance properly addressed? If they cannot answer that question, there would seem a reasonable chance that they have not been thinking about it, and therefore that it is not actually what they want. AI cannot tell them what they need to be happy].
(vii) The effectiveness of mediation makes it a very hard proposal for either party to refuse and still look reasonable. The same is true of an employer’s endeavours to reduce the size of the AI-assisted grievance (and hence investigation) to tangible specifics so far as practicable. The lengthier, angrier and vaguer the terms of the grievance, the more easily that the employer will be able to carry out that preliminary dissection of it without stepping outside the range of reasonable responses, and so without viable challenge from the employee.
So please don’t let the size, tone and hallucinated case references in an AI-assisted grievance put you back on your heels. It’s probably just a cry for help, perhaps amplified by the employee’s inability to put it in their own voice. Treat it as such, not as an affront or provocation, and you may be surprised at just how much of it will melt away to nothing under HR’s warm embrace.
