C ASE S TUDY
Grievance against trustees
Sadly this charity, although set up for a very worthy cause,
has never been a very happy place of work. Employees and
volunteers get on with their jobs but tend to work in silos,
doing what is required of them but little more. The chief
executive (CEO) does not like to criticise or upset any
member of staff particularly her senior management team
(SMT). The charity does pay reasonably well so people
tend to stay for about three years and then move on.
O
PR
The board has been generally light-touch.
The new chair is keen to ensure she has
a stable management team.
The charity faces a couple of significant
but manageable problems that come to
the attention of the board of eight trustees.
In order to get to the bottom of these
significant problems the trustees have had
to ask, unusually, some deep and penetrating
questions of the SMT. Although asked in
A chief executive responds
One member of the SMT goes off sick immediately
after the board meeting claiming stress. She
instigates a grievance claim against the treasurer
on the basis of bullying at the board meeting.
#grievance
a stage in the process for any appeal and that not
all the board should be involved in the grievance.
It should also be considered whether policies
should cover volunteers as well as paid staff.
O
This might take a while to untangle. Urgent things
first. Strong leadership is required by both the
chair and the CEO. An emergency board meeting
should be called to address the issue of board
confidence and possible resignations, preferably
with an external facilitator to identify the key
issues and agree appropriate action. The negative
social media issue should also be addressed
immediately in regard to reputational risk. All staff
and board members should be reminded of the
social media policy (presuming one is in place) and
a warning should be given regarding any breach
of policy and the consequences. Records should
be kept of all tweets in case of subsequent action.
a constructive manner, SMT dislike having their
decisions, actions or inactions questioned.
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#bullying
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Once those immediate actions are taken, we can
start to unravel some of the problems. External
professional advice should be sought regarding
the grievances (any cost would be well worth it)
and final dates should be set and adhered to.
If policies are not clear regarding procedures,
a subsequent action would be to have all policies
reviewed and updated and any relevant training
undertaken. They should also ensure that there is
A full induction process should be put in place
for board members which should include how
to deal with conflicts of interest – and how
to identify when they arise.
More general leadership development should
be considered for senior staff. Constructive
challenge should be welcomed and is an
essential role of the board. A robust appraisal
process should be put in place and should
be supportive as well as embedding an ethos
of continuous improvement.
Finally, a suitable mentor may be a helpful
support for the CEO to develop their capacity
going forward.
Pat Armstrong
Chief executive, Acosvo (Association of Chief
Officers of Scottish Voluntary Organisations)
C I V I L S O C I ET Y.CO.U K
C ASE S TUDY
Dates for the grievance hearing are postponed
four times at short notice by the person who
brought the grievance on the grounds that she
is not fit enough (because of stress) to participate
in the hearing. The chair of trustees is chairing
the grievance hearing and (on the advice of the
CEO) accommodates the complainant.
The vice chair decides to fight back and
to instigate a counter-procedure. The CEO
informs the vice chair that as a volunteer he has
neither the rights of an employee nor of a paid
contractor and therefore cannot use any of the
organisation’s procedures.
O
PR
At the same time, in order to resolve the
second problem faced by the charity and
because the charity does not have the funds
to pay a consultant, the vice chair (a specialist
in the relevant field) offers to do some
consultancy work on a completely voluntary
basis. This involves four weeks of full-time
work at the charity. The lead staff member
is not very cooperative. Nevertheless, with the
help of more junior staff, the consultancy is
completed and it becomes obvious that the lead
member of staff is not really up to his job. He
claims he was bullied by the vice chair. The CEO
informs him of the charity’s anti-bullying policy
and asks him to formally start a grievance
procedure. He misses the deadline to report the
alleged offence and the deadline is extended on
two occasions by the CEO before the grievance
is finally lodged.
In the meantime, the member of SMT who is at
home suffering from stress has started tweeting
negative comments about the treasurer who she
claims is bullying her. Before long, it snowballs
with current and former members of staff joining
in with malicious and salacious comments being
tweeted about most of the trustees. All seven
trustees apart from the chair are on the point
of resigning.
An employment lawyer responds
Vice chair
The chair has been tolerant in relation to the
delays about submitting the grievance against
the vice chair. The vice chair will usually not have
a right to take out a grievance, or a countergrievance, but may well have rights to be
protected from discrimination. For example, if the
issue is between a black and a white person, or
a male and female then the charity should be alert
to any challenge that the decision not to allow
the vice chair a grievance is based on sex or race
as the case may be. The charity should therefore
ensure that the reason that the vice chair is not
offered a counter-grievance is not discriminatory.
A practical way forward might be to allow the vice
chair a full chance to respond to the complaints.
Any outstanding matters could be referred to the
new chair to deal with by way of disciplinary.
This employee is now tweeting derogatory
comments. This is a potential misconduct issue,
for example insulting behaviour, bringing the
charity into disrepute, or breach of confidentiality,
but the charity needs to be aware that tweeting
might constitute ‘whistleblowing’. It would help
if the charity had a social media policy setting
out what is or is not acceptable.
The trustees could run grievance and disciplinary
procedures alongside each other (not together);
it could be helpful to hold the disciplinary and
grievance procedures on the same day, one after
the other.
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C I VI LS OCIETY. CO. UK
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SMT member
Just because the employee is off work sick, it does
not mean that she is not fit to attend a hearing.
The trustees should rely on GP notes and
occupational health reports to assess the position.
The trustees seem to have been very tolerant of
the delays so far and they are obliged to consider
the interests of the employee, but they must also
consider the best interests of the charity.
Generally
We recommend training for all on their
duties and responsibilities, in order to assist
understanding of each other’s roles. We question
the wisdom of allowing the vice chair to have
blurred the dividing line between trustees and
the SMT by carrying out the consultancy work.
Peter Woodhouse
Partner, employment, Stone King
G O V ER N A N C E • S EPTEMB ER 2015
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