Workplace grievances: Unveiling the mysterious process of facts and fiction

In this week's episode, we dive into the often enigmatic realm of workplace grievances. For most of us, the need to either lodge a grievance or become the recipient of one is a rare occurrence, possibly happening only once in our entire career.
 
Our guest today, Katherine McCord, unveils the mysteries surrounding this process and provides valuable advice on how to navigate it should you ever find yourself in such a situation.
 
The conversation delves into critical aspects like safety concerns, breakdowns in communication, and the pivotal role played by HR in resolving workplace conflicts.
 
Katherine McCord, a globetrotting People Operations entrepreneur and an internationally recognized speaker, joins us for this insightful discussion.
 
Connect with her on Linkedin 

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Big shout out to my podcast magician, Marc at iRonickMedia for making this real.

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

Katherine McCord: 0:00

And I want to address grievances on behalf of other people. Because I gave an example earlier of how that can blow up in your face because it's not accurate right? With the woman who thought that she witness sexual harassment, in fact did not. But also the importance of it because sometimes a person is in a situation and doesn't feel safe speaking up, and they need an advocate. So my piece of advice is to always do it with the other person. So it's great to advocate but go with them.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 0:30

So welcome to unset at work, I am your host, Katherine seg Macy and I have a keen interest in those conversations that we're just not having in the workplace. And today's episode, we're going to continue conversation from a few weeks ago with a returning guest, Catherine McCord. If you haven't checked it out, be sure to listen to our previous episode called HR confidential where she under the hills when HR truly thinks about Office romances the office jerk and probably mess, the home quizzes for HR day, we're going to dedicate an entire episode to unravel the mysterious world of workplace grievances. I don't know about you, but I certainly hope that for you the either the need to lodge a grievance or to be on the receiving end is a rare and rare one. And maybe you know, it doesn't ever occur in your career. But I've noticed in the course of my coaching work, I've had a few clients who found themselves on the receiving end of complaint. And whilst this wasn't the primary focus of our coaching, it inevitably arose during our work together. And I discovered the navigating this just from from their coach and supporting them as to what a what a protracted and unclear process. It seemed to be from the outset, and just how terribly challenging it is for the individuals involved to be in that process. So today, I'm excited to delve into this more with Katherine, just learn and share insights with you. I find the whole process a black box, and I wanted to take the mystery out of it all. So in our conversation, we're going to look at how to approach HR when facing when you want to lay a larger grievance, the importance of presenting factual evidence and in aware of motion of pain to this because it's hard, not they're very strong emotions at this at this point. They're also what it's like to be on the receiving end of a grievance procedure. A quick and dirty introduction to her again, Catherine. She's a globe trotting People Operations entrepreneur, and international speaker. She has multiple physical disabilities and new diversities. And she really believes that her success is because of her diagnosis not in spite of in spite of them. She has a really unwavering commitment to integrity and inclusion and innovation, and made really huge contributions to revolutionizing HR tech, driving diversity, equity inclusion initiatives, recruiting she also has her own nonprofit organization focusing on neurodiversity called the neurips. I really value your feedback inside. So please share your podcast experience with me and feel free to send me an email, let me know how this podcast is impacting your life. And if there's any topics that you want me to dig deeper in the future, your inputs valuable in the appreciate that you find time to listen to these episodes. So as a reminder, there are some runner topics that we discuss in this episode. And if you aren't feeling fully yourself, feel free to come back and listen for some time, so pumped to listen and learn. are back for a second part of our conversation, which we ran out of time for the end of last episode. But one I really I really wanted to take a stand for which is navigating workplace grievances. And I just think there's a richness here because you as HR gets to see many of them most of us might go through one if we're unfortunate in our entire lives and either on the receiving end or putting in the grievance. So it's a very scary, murky. Yeah. I mean, like this is I could not miss the opportunity to grill the HR directors to go do it. What do we need to know? What do we need to know? Like, if I'm making a complaint against someone? What should I do? Oh, you What are you thinking?

Katherine McCord: 4:06

So first of all, if you're in this position, I'm sorry, it sucks. It's never fun one ever give. First of all, I want to say to anybody going through that give yourself some grace, let yourself get some feelings going about this. It's okay. Don't let anybody shame you into feeling bad that you're unhappy or that you feel unsafe or anything like that. So give yourself some grace, and then understand that what HR is going to need because we talked about this early on the conversation. So it's a great circle back. It's going to be facts. We are not mind reader's, we do not have a crystal ball where we can see what's going on and because of legalities, company policies and procedures, all of these things. We need to know every detail. Now. This can be painful. And I want to go ahead and acknowledge that. The best thing that you can do is before going to HR process and emotions out and then Think of it almost like it's a movie, or one of those, maybe, I don't know if they every country does this. But here in the United States, it's very common that when you're in elementary school, you write a how to paper. And it's extremely specific, you're teaching them how to make a peanut butter sandwich. And you have to say, walk to the second door to the left are the same. To get the knife, open the drawer, you have to say every single step, right? And then you say, pull out the knife, close the door, think of it like that. It needs to be extremely factual, not your emotions, take your emotions out of it, they will care about that, that will be used later. But create a fact sheet, a chronological, so meaning an order fact sheet of this is what happened, tell them the time, the place, anybody who is around who that person is in relationship with you factually, okay. And only facts, no emotion, no assumption, none of that. These are the facts of what has happened. If you have evidence, such as emails, chat, any of that, if there's our witnesses, you can put that and put who they are, that those types of things, and have that with you to go to HR, because when you get there to talk to them, all those emotions are going to come rushing back. And that's okay, that is okay. But you need to have those facts written down, and make sure that they're clear. And then you can let the HR person know, hey, I'll circle back if I remember anything else. But going into them with those facts, is extremely helpful in the situation. And that can help them to best assist

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 6:32

you. You're saying that. So clearly, I assume your experiences of people come just with the emotion and the facts have lost in the Yes, and you're

Katherine McCord: 6:41

very hard in the feelings out in one meeting. So I typically end up needing to have a couple of meetings to get all the facts down. Now I'm also pretty darn good at sussing through the emotion and getting to the facts. And I'll explain to people why I'm doing this, they understand that I'm helping them they don't feel like I'm removing the importance of their emotion. And I also usually let them start off by getting the emotions out for a minute. Let's process through that. I told them, I'm going to need to ask a lot of very specific acts is going to feel like I'm probing This is why I'm doing this and so that I can help you it's your data. And then we go through it, I take them through every night ask a lot of clarifying questions for them. So also prepare yourself that this that the HR person is going to have to ask some uncomfortable questions. For instance, I had a sexual harassment case one time, are you actually sorry, assaults would be the more proper word. And I had to ask her. So like she said, He touched me. And I said, Okay, where and I had to get very specific, grab you was it a brush with me, I had to get very specific with her, she would cry a few times. And we would pause and let her process through that. And then we kept going. And also the other the good side about the process is it can help them to find the evidence to take care of the jerk. Sometimes what you initially tell them will not be enough. But if they really get down there and start cycling through because a lot of times, there was something leading up to behavior. And other people at least saw that. So maybe the final act wasn't seen by other people. But the first the lead up was, and so they can back up that so then there's at least a pattern to where we can know that something is wrong. And we can deal with something even if it's not that specific instance.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 8:31

It's really sort of procedural, I think of court cases and videos, but the details specifics don't matter so much. Yes, they do. But I'm also hearing you as HR, you're not dismissing the trauma of their experience. But that isn't what's going to take the process forward. Yeah, and

Katherine McCord: 8:48

you so you need to also, again, be willing to, you need to talk on the HR side, talk to the person about do you feel safe, that needs to be out of your mouth real quick? Do you feel safe? What adjustments can we make to help you feel safe while this is going on? But it you just go through different stages? And sometimes you may not need to ask the safety question depending on what it is because it just there's all different kinds of complaints. But if that's part of it, then you need to ask them right away, refer them to any benefits that may help any other resources that may help explain to them the investigation process, what that's going to look like what's going to happen, and make sure that everything is very clear to people but you know, the emotions are big, they're important too, but they, like you said they can't move forward. And again, that's back to the you have to be able to be objective. You have to you have to look at something and say I don't know both sides of this yet. And you have to look at the other side and you have to be able to do it through a clear lens, which can be very hard or you have to step back and hand the investigation off to

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 9:54

somebody who can. I remember being on a board of trustees at a charity and we found out that staff had taken against the CEO and were accusing her of I think bullying and favoritism was many years ago now. And the thought that the anonymous submission vine and anonymous employee survey was enough. And they got really angry with the Board of Trustees where we couldn't do anything, you know, anything with that. You can't make grievances, and then stay anonymous. And this is I mean, however traumatic it might be to, to name it and come forward. But that's part of it. So there are limits to edit anonymity here, right.

Katherine McCord: 10:31

Right now, and I want to clarify, so I'm big on using anonymous feedback for things like procedural, hey, this procedure should be altered. It's not inclusive. Here's why. Well, that can be anonymous, you don't need to know who said that, for that to be a thing. But when it comes to something that's going to affect somebody's job, no, there needs to be a conversation. And there needs to be evidence. Now, I did one time this is very unique. See an anonymous complaint that gave the evidence because it was not the participant, they saw it. And so they said, Here's the evidence, here's this and that, and that was interesting. So if you can somehow do that, then yes, you can be anonymous, but they gave us the facts that we needed to take care of it. And I want to address grievances on behalf of other people. Because I gave an example earlier, and how that can blow up in your face, because it's not accurate, right? With the woman who thought that she witnessed sexual harassment and in fact, did not. But also the importance of it, because sometimes a person is in a situation and doesn't feel safe speaking up, and they need an advocate. So my piece of advice is to always do it with the other person. So it's great to advocate but go with them. And don't do it

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 11:42

on I was very strange that yeah, no, do it. Tell the person that you were advocating on their behalf? Yes,

Katherine McCord: 11:48

you need to have their blessing, their understanding, encourage them to come with you. A lot of times just having somebody else say, Yeah, I see you and your valid will be the strength that they need to go ahead and come forth. Plus, then you're their witness. You're their evidence. That's a great help. That's really super helpful. And I have people say, ask me all the time to leave, how do you feel about people who see something and don't say something? And even when they're asked, say, out of fear of their own job, deny that something happened? And my answer to that is a very honest, they are cowards. And frankly, I get those people out the door as quickly as I can. I have found a few of those over the years that were on my team that did not support someone that was in a dangerous situation, that was not good situation. I found out that members of my team had known about it and had lied during the investigation. And I brought them in had a conversation and very soon they did not have jobs. Because they started figuring out that that wasn't in place for them. And I didn't even know badly. I didn't treat them badly. But I let them know, lactation. And

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 12:54

there's a fine line between if I speak up and I if I speak up as an advocate for someone else, I'm gonna lose my job. And I'm the breadwinner, and I have some empathy for

Katherine McCord: 13:04

this was a sort of the issue. I want to be very, okay, this was a safety issue. And not just for that for everybody on the team. They knew that somebody had been bringing a weapon to work and not reported it. So this was a safety issue for the team. Because the stakes thing Yeah, and even but even so even with the breadwinner, nothing's worth your integrity, nothing. And so if some somebody has been done wrong, and you let that happen again, you can donate 100% of the things you don't condemn. You just said this is okay. Because I get to make my paycheck.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 13:38

I always say, can you look yourself in the mirror in the morning? Yeah, yeah, well, some people

Katherine McCord: 13:43

can, which tells you a lot about them. But yeah, I know, I still get the coward thing. Now. In my case, like I said, they put the staff in that, in particular danger, that was not acceptable.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 13:54

Tell me about being on the receiving end. So someone like I've had a few clients of mine go through being because they are seeing people going through or being on the receiving end. And it's, it is terrible to watch them suffer through that being on the receiving end of my when I have an assumption, then you can tell me if I'm right or wrong, and that the especially in today's society, it's quite easy to trigger the grievance procedure. Oh, it is. Yeah, there's a judgement. I'm not saying that's the right. I think. But for me, I want people before you trigger the grievance presupposes No, there's a human being on the other side as well. Yeah, it

Katherine McCord: 14:28

makes sense. First of all, that is actually something worth that person's career being hurt. If it is a great, great, go for it. That's the Yeah, that's the very right use, because otherwise, you can just give like some generic feedback, things like that. Step out of your own feelings for a minute, see the other side of it and think, Is this worth this person's career being harmed? If the answer is yes, proceed, because there are plenty of things out there that can be on the receiving end. I've watched Oh man, I've seen it all. I've seen people that did not deserve The complaint at all that there was no evidence. In fact, in a couple of cases, we fly through the other person with the complaint that was lying. But the damage had already been done. The perception was already there. One of them was a sexual harassment complaint. But we actually were able to prove for a fact that what the person said happened did not happen. But it had gotten out, despite all of our best efforts to keep it in and because the complaintant was going around talking about it was and so people knew she was asked not to. So people knew. And then it was just in people's head. And it really did cause a problem. And it was very sad. The other thing, too, is that sometimes there are legitimate complaints. But the other person, it's not that they're a jerk, it's just that they're in the wrong job. And that can be hard to because sometimes you get over promoted. And maybe you didn't know that you were being over promoted, maybe you thought, oh, great, this is a great opportunity for me, and you didn't realize that you weren't really going to be that good at the job, or you just weren't ready for it. Maybe you will be one day, but you just weren't ready for it. So here's this person filing complaint, putting a permanent marker on your career. It's not that you suck, you just weren't quite ready for that job yet. That feels

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 16:16

like a very thought we can fast track in advance to a computer a grievance with and skip the have you given the business feedback? Yes,

Katherine McCord: 16:24

that all the time, people are so scared to give feedback and make the complaint. Yes, and cause them all kinds of problems. So the first thing I always tell people is an actually, on the HR side when somebody comes in if unless it's something egregious. I say, Have you had a conversation with them about this? If the answer is no, I say Well, let's start there. Yeah. Would you like my help? Before we file any paperwork before?

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 16:47

Baby steps? Yeah, yeah, that's

Katherine McCord: 16:49

one HR two, like, you need to be looking at these people going, Okay, this isn't worth an investigation. At this point. Let's just have a meeting and have a conversation. And let's mediate them. To

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 16:58

be clear, we're not talking about bringing guns into workplace harassment or sexual harass, or talking about at least bully bullies me in the meeting. If anybody's a word that's thrown around very quickly,

Katherine McCord: 17:13

I very quickly and a lot of times, it's just two very different communication styles. So for instance, I know an excellent manager who in general gets superb feedback who is on the autism spectrum, and is very direct, and then had a person with a different neurodiversity, who perceived the directness as rudeness, and thus use the term bullying, because it was done in front of other people, while everybody else in the team knew, right and just didn't think twice about it didn't see us or being put down or anything like that. And then with the manager, she was very confused about this feedback was like, I am so sorry, I was not trying to bully you. Oh, my gosh. And we just figured it out. And we had to talk about it. And we can't, we came to better understand each other. A lot of times, we just need to be adult enough to have these conversations. And oh my gosh, you're talking about something that HR wants to say to everybody act like adults. Oh, my God, we are not running a daycare folks. Like adults, oh, my goodness, have a conversation. Have a conversation. And I will even I will say this and I am hardcore, like anti harassment and is all about this. But if you don't say no, how was he? How was the other person supposed to know that? You didn't want that to happen? Say no, thank you. I'm not touching that. Never touch another human out there. Ever. But if you ask somebody, I literally one time how to girl. This lady comes into my office, she's upset and she says I've been harassed. And she said this other coworker asked me on a date at work party said oh, sorry. Have you expressed to him? You know that that you didn't know? Okay, how did you respond to His invitation? She said, I told her well, maybe. And her her holding. Yeah, her whole thing again, mind reader's, her whole thing was that he then followed up and said, Hey, you said baby, like did you want to go out? Do that's not harassment? You said maybe they were the same level I want to be right. They were the same level employee and all that and I'm like, okay, he asked me to tell him no,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 19:20

but the thing was, like, you go to the teacher and go, do you steal my pencil? Can you make him give it back to me? And that's what they're treating you like, right? The teacher take

Katherine McCord: 19:27

care of it. They just, and I've had so many people. Well, my boss keeps doing this. And I don't like it. Have you told them that? No. So how do they know that you don't like it? Like what is the craziest thing so? So what are the first whatever you say that like? What are the things that HR really wants you to know? Please act like an adult. Say something. If you don't like something, say something? If you do like something also say that because managers appreciate knowing that they're doing the right yeah. Like, if you have a co worker, I can't tell How many people come to me oh, this coworker is so rude to me, Oh, this coworker does this and this. And then you bring them in, realize they've never had an honest discussion with each other. Sit down, have them discuss it, poof, they're better. Why did I need to be involved in that? Why don't you just have a conversation? Now, if you're nervous about mediation, if you know that there's a communication breakdown, and you just want help communicating, cool, say that, but you don't need to file a grievance against them. You don't need to say, I want to make a complaint about this person, they are wrong. You just need to say, hey, we're having a breakdown. Can you help? That's okay, that's part of hrs job to come to me like that. Don't come to me and say, I haven't tried anything. And I haven't even told this person, my expectations, but they're definitely wrong, and they suck.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 20:47

Well, and you need to do something about it HR, like, not me. You

Katherine McCord: 20:54

know, I guess another thing we went to is you're gonna have to be involved in the process, like you said about, like the anonymous feedback, they know, you're going to have to be involved in the process. So just process through that. Ask what to expect. And I've had people come to me and say, if I were to file grievance, what would that look like? And that's a very intelligent question. Because it's different for every organization. Right? So that's not a dumb question. Very intelligent, as a matter of fact. So feel free to go to HR and ask before you dive in, because you might realize that's No, some it's the whole situation. Is it worth you going through that? Yeah,

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 21:30

I think it's great advice to end this on. I always find workplace grievances procedures like this, like black box. Yeah. Because outside perspective, you go people enter in and then maybe come out the other end of the process, because it's all hashed out and people can't talk about it. It happens. So this is really helpful conversation.

Katherine McCord: 21:50

Yeah, I do. Yeah. Cuz people just don't know. And you don't know what you don't know. Right? So here's what it is. It's a map to be an adult, be an adult.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 22:00

It's one thing I mean, think about, if you want to end someone's career, or mark their Korea down for whatever, is it

Katherine McCord: 22:09

worth the interview, maybe just need help having a better conversation about it. Those are two different things. And you can go to HR with either, but yeah, two different perspectives, too. And

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 22:19

he was always there to say like, how does this process work? And you don't have to know how the process works. Curious how this person is working in this company? Yes. ascetically want to know, I can tell you we can have pathetically tell you that

Katherine McCord: 22:32

hypothetically tell you exactly what will happen. And then make sure that you're getting facts for your grievance. If you have to file one, you need to have your list of facts, processors, your emotions are there for a reason. That's okay. But what we need to be able to help you are facts, facts, facts, facts. Got it.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 22:51

I hope we've made someone's data easier knowing about grievances and maybe a little less trigger happy to just kick off. Yeah.

Katherine McCord: 23:00

Leaders with their employees, like calm down, just your conversation with this person. You don't need to make it a whole thing. Yeah.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 23:08

That's why I'm so grateful for your time again on this podcast, but it's been a real joy and joy, the fun stories you can share with us and see behind the curtain is what really goes on.

Katherine McCord: 23:18

Oh, god, yeah. I one day I need to write a book or just the stories

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 23:23

or anything. Skip the book. I think you need like a Devil Wears Prada version for HR. Yeah, it's yes, script goes straight a script, Netflix, I can see it. Yeah,

Katherine McCord: 23:33

I see it and we're gonna just and then you'll have the backend of all the HR people standing around going you believe this nonsense that we're people these are supposed to be adults what's going on. But thank you so very much for having me, it's been a blast.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 23:53

I really, really, really hope that you would never have to large agreements or be on the receiving end. It's such a tough, tough place to be. But if you do that this episode has given you some insight on the process, how the process works and how to prepare yourself. And if you know anyone who might benefit from this episode, maybe they're thinking about laying a complaint against their boss, share the podcast, this episode with them, admits ourselves with the knowledge to advocate for ourselves and for others. So until next time, this is your woman signing