Meeting current legislative and regulatory requirements

For this assessment criterion, you will be required to evaluate your organisation’s disciplinary and grievance procedures and consider recommending changes to these processes to ensure that they meet current legislative and regulative requirements.

As discussed in the previous section, disciplinary procedures are used by an employer to address an employee’s performance or conduct issues whilst grievance procedures are used by employees to address concerns or complaints against their employer.

You will need to read through your employer’s current disciplinary and grievance procedures and perhaps make some notes about the key points.

You should then take a look at legislation and regulation that relates to disciplinary and grievance procedures and compare your organisation’s procedures to them to ensure that they meet the requirements.

Legislation relating to disciplinary/grievance processes includes:

• Employment Act 2008
• Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) (Amendment) Regulations 2008
• ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures – not strictly legislation but is taken into account in employment tribunals, so it is advisable to follow this code

The government has published guidance for disciplinary procedures on their website, the main points of which are:

• Employers should make their disciplinary procedure easily accessible to staff
• Employers must send a letter to the employee clearly stating the issue and arrange a meeting to discuss the issue (the hearing) before a disciplinary decision is made
• Employees must have the opportunity to appeal a disciplinary decision
• Employees can be accompanied by a colleague or trade union representative but must inform their employer beforehand
• The companion can speak to the employee and provide information but must not answer questions on the employee’s behalf
• If possible, appeal hearings should not be conducted by anyone that has already been involved with the disciplinary process

All legislation and guidance put emphasis on employers and employees trying to resolve the issue formally before invoking official disciplinary/grievance procedures.

Assessment criteria

Learners critically evaluate their organisation’s disciplinary and grievance procedures and consider recommended changes to these processes to ensure they meet current legislative and regulatory requirements