Deal with Grouchy Employees Before Deal with You.

It’s every employer dreams of having workers who are consistently happy. After all,

a happy work is a productive worker and productive workers are good for the bottom line.

However, with human nature being what it is, there may still be occasional concerns or

complaints that employees would want to share with you and the company. As the head of 

a small business, it’s your job to ensure that everyone can communicate their concerns 

in a professional and productive manner.

Remember that you’re not playing Aunt Agony to employees with grievances. In addition to 

processing the complaint, you should also be looking out for problems that might harm 

your business especially if they involve harassment, discrimination, theft and violence.

Give each complaint the proper attention while assuring the employees that they are 

being heard. Here are some of the best ways to address employee complaints and manage 

their outcomes.

1. Setting Up A Channel For Complaints

The first thing you should do is to create a formal system for employees to lodge complaints 

or bring up grievances so that the issues can be addressed. There are a variety of 

mediums available for employees to report complaints, from in-person sessions to email

 and text.

Complaint channels should never be on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. 

These public  platforms will complicate matters as it can infringe defamation laws.

To make sure your employees feel comfortable using the channel, consider factors such as 

the average age of your employees, size of your workforce, whether they are in one office 

or spread out, and which department might be mostly likely to have complaints reported on. 

You should check with your PR and legal adviser on what is the most appropriate channel.

After setting up the channel, here are some of the key things you should do to ensure that 

the employee complaints are properly addressed.

Include your policy in the Employee Handbook: Once you’ve established an official channel 

for employee complaints, it should be included in the handbooks so employees can easily 

refer to it. You can consider implementing an acknowledgment form to ensure that 

employees read the handbook. If your company does not use a handbook, the policy 

should be communicated to everyone through other platforms such as staff induction 

 programmes, company intranet, posters and employee briefings.

Assign one person or department to handle the receipt of complaints: For example, the 

Human Resources or Legal department or someone within it. Make sure the appointed 

person or department is known for their discretion and can demonstrate trust within your 

company, as employees typically and naturally expect assurance that they are submitting t

heir complaints in confidence.
 

Include one confidential way for employees to submit complaints: Understandably, 

some employees may hesitate to speak their mind, as they fear infringing laws on defamation. 

An example that may prevent this is to create a simple online form or survey that doesn’t 

require identifying information – check out free survey tools like Survey Monkey and 

Google Forms.
 

Establish a schedule to address employee complaints: In order to instil a healthy work 

environment where employees feel comfortable when raising concerns, you have to prove 

that the company has an efficient and reliable process in place. Set a time frame for when 

and how you will address complaints, communicate the plan to all employees and stick to it.

2. The First Steps Of Addressing Complaints

Once you have established the best system to receive employee complaints, you should

try to order them based on significance. Any safety concerns require immediate attention, as 

should violations of rules and policies.

Before addressing a complaint, take note of the following steps:

Acknowledge: Ensure that the employees know that their complaints have been received and 

will be addressed by the company. 

Investigate: Gather information regarding the complaint. If the employee mentions specific 

incidents or situations, inquire and obtain relevant data on them. (See point 3 for more information.)
 

Decide: After you have obtained all relevant information, it’s time to fully examine the situation 

in order to formulate and decide on a solution. You may want to discuss your idea with 

other senior employees in your company before executing the solution.
 

Act: Once you have a decision, act quickly. Employee complaints that are dragged on can 

negatively impact morale and productivity. The sooner you resolve the conflict, 

the better off your company will be.

3. Implement An Impartial Investigation

Small business owners often don’t have the luxury of hiring an outside company to investigate 

employee complaints. The next logical step would be to appoint a neutral party with the 

greatest degree of removal (no personal and as little professional connection to those 

involved as possible) from the rest of the staff – this person should preferably have a 

human resources or legal background.

Do note that if the complaint is serious, such as harassment or “creative bookkeeping”, 

you may want to hire an outside lawyer or accountant immediately to investigate the issues.

The Ministry of Manpower also suggests documenting the investigation process 

by keeping a record of findings, complaint details, details of specific harassing 

behaviour and summary of interviews with the affected parties.

4. Review & Follow Up On The Outcome

After following the above-mentioned steps, you should review the situation that initially led to

 the employee complaint after a period of time. Check in with the employee who lodged the

 complaint (if it was not confidential) to see if they are satisfied with the outcome.If there are 

more adjustments to be made, do it. Proper closure can help to prevent a similar problem

 from happening again.

By Mr. Mark Goh Aik Leng

Managing Director of VanillaLaw LLC