Handling Employee Complaints

You probably don't want to spend the time and resources or have the need to develop an involved procedure for dealing with employee complaints. Instead, you may want to have some general guidelines so that employees know what to do if they have a complaint. A set of basic procedures helps you treat all complaints in a fair and consistent manner.

Your informal complaint procedure can be just about anything you want to make it. Typically, small business owners can adopt an informal, open door policy, or a more formal process involving periodic employee meetings.

Be sure to communicate basic information to employees about what to do if they have a complaint. In a "policy" of this sort:

An alternative to having a traditional complaint procedure is to address complaints as they arise. This may be an effective approach for a business with just a few employees. However, if you find that you're spending a lot of time dealing with complaints, you may want to consider a more formal complaint procedure.

Requiring employees to follow procedures may also curtail aimless complaining or griping that they may feel is justified because you don't have a specific policy governing complaints.

Whatever the type of dispute or complaint resolution procedure, either an informal procedure or a case-by-case approach, it should:

If employees feel that they are being treated with respect and fairness, they are more likely to accept the resolution you suggest, even if it is not exactly what they wanted or expected.

Be sure to treat all complaints seriously: