The Rise of the 47-Page Grievance: Because Apparently Three Pages Would Be Too Easy
Grievance or memoir? Perhaps the real problem started long before page one.
A 47-page grievance lands in HR’s inbox. It contains allegations, policy references, legal terminology, screenshots, a detailed chronology and several thousand words that someone now needs to work through. Increasingly, AI definitely may have helped produce it. But here’s the question I’d be asking:
How did we get to page 47 without somebody having a conversation?
Not every grievance can be prevented. Nor should it be. Serious allegations need proper investigation, and employees need effective ways to raise concerns. But I do wonder whether we’ve become so focused on building processes for workplace problems that we’ve neglected something more fundamental… managers actually managing.
Which is why the proposed changes to the ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures are particularly interesting. Beneath the procedural changes, there appears to be a fairly simple message:
Deal with problems earlier.
The proposals place considerably greater emphasis on informal resolution where appropriate. Employers may need to explain what informal steps were attempted before progressing formally—or why informal action wasn’t appropriate. Employees raising grievances may similarly be expected to explain what they have already done to try to resolve an issue informally, where appropriate. And grievances themselves are proposed to be “short and clear.” In an era of increasingly lengthy, AI-assisted workplace submissions, that last point feels particularly timely.
AI has changed the economics of workplace disputes
AI has made it dramatically easier to formalise a workplace dispute. Producing 30 pages of polished argument no longer necessarily takes days. It can take minutes. But AI hasn’t made investigating those 30 pages take minutes.
Someone still has to establish what actually happened.
Someone still has to speak to witnesses.
Someone still has to separate fact from assertion.
Someone still has to determine which parts of those 30 pages actually contain the grievance that needs resolving.
Producing complexity has become cheap. Resolving complexity hasn’t. Blaming AI would be convenient. Because AI didn’t create the disagreement. It didn’t avoid the performance conversation three months earlier. It didn’t allow resentment between two colleagues to build. It didn’t repeatedly postpone the one-to-one where somebody needed to be told that something wasn’t working.
AI may be accelerating escalation. But poor management can create the conditions for it.
When did managing become HR’s job?
In many organisations, HR has gradually become the place where difficult conversations go.
A manager has a performance concern? Speak to HR.
Two employees aren’t getting along? Speak to HR.
Someone’s behaviour is becoming problematic? Speak to HR.
Of course, there are plenty of situations where HR should be involved. Managers need support, and serious concerns need appropriate expertise and oversight. But there is a difference between HR supporting managers to manage and HR managing on their behalf.
If every uncomfortable conversation requires HR involvement, the organisation hasn’t necessarily built a strong HR function - it may have built management dependency. And that distinction matters even more if the proposed ACAS direction becomes reality.
You can put informal resolution into a policy. You can create a flowchart. You can add another template. None of those things makes a manager capable of sitting down with somebody and saying:
“Something isn’t working. Let’s talk about it.”
That requires judgement, confidence and skill. Managers need to be able to spot problems early, give clear feedback, set expectations, manage conflict and document what has happened. They also need to know when not to attempt informal resolution. Some allegations are too serious. Some require proper investigation. Some situations involve circumstances where asking an employee to resolve the matter informally would be entirely inappropriate. Good management capability is knowing the difference.
The best process is sometimes the one you never need
There is an understandable tendency, particularly as businesses grow, to respond to organisational problems by creating more process. Sometimes that structure is necessary. But process cannot compensate for management capability. The proposed ACAS changes are still in draft, and organisations shouldn’t start rewriting their procedures on the assumption that every proposal will make it into the final Code. But the direction of travel raises a useful question regardless.
Perhaps we shouldn’t only be asking:
“Is our disciplinary and grievance process compliant?”
We should also be asking:
“Are our managers capable of stopping manageable problems becoming formal ones?”
Because the mark of a strong people function isn’t simply how efficiently it processes grievances - it’s whether the organisation has built enough management capability to prevent avoidable issues reaching that point in the first place. The best grievance process in the world can’t compensate for six months of conversations that nobody was willing to have.
