Are you sure he has not raised a grievance? The Employment Appeals Tribunal has recently extended the definition of a grievance to include more general written complaints, including those:
- written in a resignation letter;
- written in a letter of complaint from a solicitor, acting on behalf of the employee;
- written in a manager's notes of a meeting with an employee to discuss allegations by the employee that he had been bullied;
- with no attempt to follow the employer's grievance procedure;
- with no mention of the word grievance.
If you are certain you have had no written communication that might count as a grievance, the answer to your question is that it would depend on whether you have the contractual right to demote an employee, for example, as a disciplinary sanction. If not then the case will still be allowed to proceed, even though the employee has not used the grievance procedure, as there is an exception where there is a breach of contract.
