What Happens When a Charity Gets a Grievance Wrong

A grievance lands in a charity CEO's inbox on a Tuesday afternoon. An employee says they've been treated unfairly by their manager. The language is formal. There's a mention of bullying. The CEO hasn't dealt with one of these before — or has, but it was years ago and they can't remember the process.

What happens next usually determines whether this gets resolved in three weeks or consumes the organisation for six months.

How it typically plays out

The CEO reads the grievance and feels a knot in their stomach. They're not sure what the formal process is. They look for the staff handbook and find a policy that was last reviewed in 2019. They're not sure whether they should investigate it themselves or ask someone else to. They're worried about doing the wrong thing, so they delay.

Two weeks pass. The employee who raised the grievance feels ignored. They start telling colleagues. The manager named in the grievance feels blindsided and defensive. Trust erodes on both sides. The CEO is now dealing with a team dynamic issue on top of the original complaint.

Eventually something happens — an investigation of sorts, usually conducted by someone with no training in how to do it. Meetings are held but not properly documented. The outcome letter is vague. Neither party feels heard. The employee who raised the grievance goes off sick with stress. Or they resign and go to ACAS. Or they submit a tribunal claim.

This isn't an unusual scenario. It's the most common one.

Why charities are particularly exposed

Charities tend to have cultures built on relationships, shared values, and a belief in fairness. Those are good things. But they can make grievance handling harder, not easier.

There's a reluctance to formalise. Because the culture is collegiate, there's a temptation to try to resolve everything informally — even when the complaint is serious enough to require a formal process. Informal resolution has its place, but it has to be a deliberate choice, not a default because nobody knows how to run the formal route.

The person handling it usually has no training. In larger organisations, grievances are managed by HR professionals who've done this dozens or hundreds of times. In a charity with no HR function, it falls to the CEO, a line manager, or sometimes a trustee — none of whom may have ever investigated a grievance before.

The emotional stakes are higher. When people work in a charity because they believe in the mission, a grievance feels personal in a way it might not in a commercial setting. The person raising it feels betrayed. The person it's raised about feels attacked. The CEO feels caught in the middle. All of which makes objective, process-driven handling more difficult — and more important.

Small teams mean nowhere to hide. In a 20-person charity, everyone knows when something's going on. Confidentiality is harder to maintain. People take sides. The organisational impact of a mishandled grievance is disproportionately large.

What it costs when it goes wrong

The direct costs are significant. A grievance that escalates to a tribunal claim typically costs between £10,000 and £50,000 in legal fees, management time, and potential awards — before you factor in the cost of recruiting a replacement if someone leaves.

But the indirect costs are often worse. A team that's lost trust in the leadership. A CEO who's spending 40% of their time on a people issue instead of running the charity. A board that's suddenly having to engage with something they thought was under control. Donor or funder confidence that's been shaken.

What proper process looks like

It's not complicated. But it does need to be followed consistently.

Acknowledge the grievance promptly and in writing. Explain the process clearly. Appoint an investigator who wasn't involved in the original issue — and ideally someone with experience of conducting workplace investigations. Hold the grievance meeting, take proper notes, and give the employee a genuine opportunity to be heard. Reach an outcome based on the evidence, not on who's more popular or who you can least afford to lose. Communicate the outcome clearly and offer the right of appeal.

Every step should be documented. Not because you're expecting a tribunal claim, but because documentation is what allows you to demonstrate that the process was fair if anyone ever asks — whether that's the employee, a trustee, or a judge.

If you're a charity in Sheffield, South Yorkshire or anywhere in the UK and you've got a grievance on your desk right now that you're not sure how to handle, that's exactly the kind of situation we support. We can step in as an independent investigator, advise the CEO through the process, or provide the ongoing HR advisory that means these situations are handled properly from the start.