Learners support team members to understand systems and processes relating to concerns and complaints

All staff members should have a good understanding of the systems and processes that relate to raising concerns and making complaints within your organisation. As a manager, you should support team members to understand their roles and responsibilities so that they are able to perform their job well.

How concerns and complaints are reported, recorded and monitored to resolution

Team members and external agencies must be provided with information about how complaints and concerns can be raised. Your organisation’s complaints/concerns policy should be transparent and accessible to all. You may offer staff training in the form of workshops, team meetings, discussions and supervision to help them to understand how the systems and processes work.

Dissemination of information on current requirements to all staff members and other professional and external agencies on how complaints and concerns can be raised

Similarly, any changes that are made to systems and processes should be disseminated to others so that they understand how it will affect them. As well as circulating memorandums, you may also wish to have discussions with team members so that you are able to answer any questions or address any concerns that they have.

Monitoring of training on the importance of effective systems and processes

As discussed earlier, you should provide training to team members on the importance of effective systems and processes. All training should be recorded.

Acknowledging team member’s anxiety about receiving concerns and complaints about their practice

When concerns or complaints are made about a team member’s practice, they must be addressed, however, you should approach it sensitively and acknowledge that they may be anxious about receiving criticism. You should emphasise that the concern is about an area of their practice and not them personally and the reason for discussing it with them is to help them to learn, develop and improve their practice.

Acknowledging team member’s anxiety about raising concerns and complaints about poor practice and the importance of whistleblowing

Similarly, team members may have anxiety about raising concerns and complaints themselves, particularly if it relates to poor practices that may need to be reported to external agencies. All staff should understand their responsibilities relating to whistleblowing and it should form part of the training and induction process. However, staff may still feel reluctant to raise concerns for fear of reprisals or detrimental treatment by their employer for doing so. Team members should be reassured that whistleblowing policies are there to protect them from this.

Showing an open door policy and non-judgmental approach to team members who wish to raise a concern or make a complaint

The culture of your organisation should be open, and transparent and encourage the raising of concerns to improve the service provided. You can reinforce this by showing an open-door policy to team members who wish to raise a complaint or a concern. All complaints and concerns should be taken seriously and you should be fair and non-judgmental when dealing with them, whilst maintaining confidentiality.