AI grievances – the latest workplace challenge
AI grievances – the latest workplace challenge
There’ s a new type of grievance in town. Several pages long, full of legalese and spattered with references to discrimination, whistleblowing, constructive dismissal and breaches of the ACAS Code. Yep – you’ ve just received your first AI generated grievance!
Over the past year employees are increasingly turning to their favourite AI tool to turn a workplace concern into a formal grievance. Should we be worried about this?
AI is amazing, it helps me with so many things in my own business and it’ s just come up with a brilliant itinerary for our family summer holiday. But. It only does what you tell it to do and if you’ ve only entered in your version of events and you haven’ t referenced any of the pertinent employer or background details, it might fill in those gaps incorrectly. It can invent legislation or it can reference case law that is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. It often generates something that sounds like a submission to an Employment Tribunal.
When you’ re on the receiving end this can all feel very intimidating. It’ s as though an employment law barrister has personally written a complaint to you. Shortly afterwards, you realise this is,“ clearly written by Chat- GPT”, and then the temptation can be to challenge the employee about using AI or respond line-by-line to every legal phrase. Hint: none of those should be your starting point.
Having dealt with an increasing number of these over the last year, here are my tips for responding:
Your job is not to investigate who wrote the letter. Your job is to understand what the issues are:
• What does the employee say happened?
• Who was involved and when?
• What evidence or witnesses may exist?
• How has it affected them?
• What outcome is the employee seeking?( often the part that’ s missing in the letter)
Your first step is to invite the employee to a grievance meeting and ask them to explain the issues in their own words – in my experience this is often where things start to fall down because rarely has the employee read the AI generated letter thoroughly and usually they don’ t understand and can’ t easily summarise what the letter says. If that’ s the case, go back to the questions above and guide the employee through these.
Terms such as“ victimisation”,“ harassment” and“ breach of mutual trust and confidence” have specific legal meanings but don’ t be bamboozled by lots of legal terminology – just because the wording seems polished, doesn’ t mean the allegation is accurate.
Focusing on the evidence is what matters. Test the disputed facts objectively and avoid becoming defensive simply because the grievance criticises you or a manager.
What can small businesses do now?
• Make sure your grievance procedure is current and accessible.
• Train managers to recognise and escalate complaints, including those raised informally.
• Use an investigation plan to separate allegations, evidence and findings.
• Correct inaccurate legal assumptions calmly in the outcome letter.
• Introduce sensible guidance on AI use and confidentiality – have you got an AI policy and does it reference your disciplinary and grievance procedures?
• Keep it human – your judgement should be at the centre of every decision, AI can’ t replace that.
AI might have made it easier to produce an impressivelooking complaint but it hasn’ t changed the fundamentals of good employee relations: listen, clarify, investigate, decide fairly and communicate clearly. Don’ t panic!
As always, do get in touch if you need support handling a grievance or conducting an independent workplace investigation.
Ruth George- HR Consultant ruth @ ruthgeorge. com | 07899 920075
© Ruth George HR Consulting. This is not legal advice and is provided for general information only.
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