Mistaken or Vexatious?

HR & Diversity Management's web site says: "At HR&DM we have designed a model which ascertains, very early on, whether an employee grievance is vexatious or not."

How would this help someone who called the National Bullying Helpline, and who was persauded to introduce HR&DM to their employer for the purpose of conducting an investigation into their grievance?

It would be really helpful to people who called the National Bullying Helpline if they could be told that their grievance was vexatious before their employer engaged HR&DM's services, rather than waiting until the end of a costly investigation.

For an employment tribunal to find as fact that an employee's grievance was "vexatious", there would have to be facts to show that the grievance was not aired in good faith. This means the grievance would have to have been raised for personal gain, or out of persistent resentment for the person complained about.

Whistleblowing legislation includes a provision for reasonable belief. A disclosure to one's employer need not be factually correct, so long as the person disclosing the information reasonably believes it to be true. This makes it safe for someone to raise a concern out of reasonable suspicion without fear of victimisation. For example, if an accounting clerk suspects that money is being stolen, he can report it before establishing that it actually is being stolen, and he need not fear getting into trouble for doing so. Similarly, if an employee reports that their employer's conduct is calculated or likely to seriously damage or destroy the relationship of trust and confidence, and the reasons they do this is because by all accounts they are being bullied, then they make a protected disclosure and thus acquire the right not to be victimised for raising the concerns.

A person conducting an investigation into alleged bullying should reasonably be concerned with establishing whether the incidents complained of actually occurred, and if so, what the cumulative effect of those incidents is on the recipient. Unless there are signs that the grievance was patently fabricated for personal gain or for the sole purpose of deliberately causing harm to the subject of the complaint, an early suggestion that the grievance is "vexatious" could well be deemed as prejudicial to the outcome of the investigation.