An employee raised a grievance having been suspended pending disciplinary action.
This is not uncommon and will very much depend on the circumstances as to how it is managed.
In this case, Mustard HR was commissioned to carry out an investigation into the grievance points the employee had raised. Because some of these points were related to the disciplinary issue, including conduct during proceedings, the advice to the client was to ‘park’ the disciplinary process until the grievance had been resolved (note, this isn’t always the case – it is entirely dependent on the facts of each individual situation).
A full investigation was carried out promptly by Mustard HR, where all relevant parties were interviewed and a report then submitted to the client, including the findings of the investigation and full recommendations.
The fact that an independent investigation was commissioned helped the client to demonstrate particularly to the complainant, but also to all involved, that they were taking the matter seriously by placing it in the hands of an impartial third party and therefore showing that they were open to accepting whatever the investigation found.
The recommendations were taken on board and the disciplinary process later resumed.