Good leaders and organisations want to support complainants, and take their complaints seriously. But not every complaint has the same seriousness, actionability, or ring of truth to easily reach consensus on the appropriate workplace response. How can you filter the substantive issues from perceived issues, while bringing all your decision-makers and managers along for the journey?
First, build and implement procedures and scripts for complaints handling. These remove the variation involved in individualised response. They give your workforce confidence that no matter how they report an issue, it will receive the same response. This also manages the risk of complainants “shopping” for a sympathetic ear.
Teach those receiving reports how to do it well. Good complaints-handling requires a strong understanding of the workplace procedure, the boundaries of your employer duties, and an excellent poker face. Employees who make a complaint should feel listened to, not loved. Trauma-informed complaints handling training can also help elevate your practice to support a diverse workforce, psychosocial obligations and high-risk subject matter in complaints.
Pack as many tools as possible into your toolkit. Not every complaint requires investigation or mediation. Explore and build your capability and resources for conflict resolution, coaching, support planning and restorative practice. Create clear guidance on which tools fit which cases, and design criteria you can use to make consistent, evidence-based choices that yield the best possible chance of positive resolution.
Make sure your business case speaks to everyone. Some decision makers are motivated by risk management, others by financial metrics and others by cultural outcomes. Treating all complaints as equally serious do not mean taking the most significant response: it means focussed and detailed assessment that considers all the related impacts, causes, indicators and possibilities.
Complaints-handling has traditionally be treated as a responsive tool, but it should be reframed as an opportunity for early intervention and prevention.
