Do you ever feel that you are trying to have a human conversation with a computer? Are you finding that employees are citing caselaw and legislation as if they've recently swallowed an employment law textbook? Or are you experiencing an unusually high number of grievances? 

If so, you are not alone. One of the things we've heard from clients across all our sectors is that minor employee concerns are escalating quickly into formal grievances, leaving less opportunities for employers to resolve issues informally. 

Employers are feeling overwhelmed by pages of case law and legislation references and in some instances, this may reflect the growing use of AI tools like Chat GPT. In some cases, we’ve heard of AI assisting with correspondence to ACAS and even tribunal claim forms.  

This can make it more challenging to resolve disputes, as AI tools often reinforce the information they are given, which could be emotional, exaggerated or one-sided.

This has the potential to increase the workload of HR teams, impact employee-employer relationships and increase the number of matters progressing to tribunal. It's also worth noting that the tribunal backlogs are significant - meaning that claims can take a number of years to be heard - which may not be fully reflected in the guidance received from AI sources.

Here are my top tips for how to try to inject some ‘human’ into the situation and reduce disputes:

• Encourage employees to use their own words to express what has gone wrong, how they feel and their desired resolution when submitting a grievance.
• Always consider whether an informal resolution can still be explored. Can you sit down with the employee to explore their issues on an informal basis and see if anything can be achieved informally first?
• Meet with the employee and ask them to tell you in their own words what the key issues/events are. Even if to begin with they provide a 20-page grievance, try as far as possible to agree with the employee on a focused and shorter list of their key complaints. 

If any of this has resonated with you and you would like to talk through a specific situation or would just like to have a general conversation about what your organisation can do, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me or one of the team.

P.S. This blog was written by a human (me).