Fielding Complaints from Co-workers

Regarding complaints in the workplace no matter what the issue is, it needs to be treated with the utmost seriousness and documented that it was brought forward.

Be it a complaint regarding an issue with the company or with a fellow co-worker, the best way to make sure it is not lost is to document at the time of the complaint and then put the proceedings into a digital file either stored on google drive or on the Personnel Drive using this file

Going through the complaint form is pretty self explanatory.

Document the Employee name, position, Location, date the complaint was brought to you, and employee’s immediate supervisor.

1. Describe the incident(s): if the employee is coming to you immediately after it occurred, they may need some time to collect themselves, allow that to occur before you press them to describe the situation that has brought them here. Is is good to make a note of the emotional state they were in when they did come to you regarding the incident depending on the severity it may be needed to add context at a later time.
2. Ask the the employee to describe what happened and to be as descriptive as possible, but avoiding subjective statements such as “I feel” or other statements of conjecture, the main aspect is to get the facts of the incident, as well as avoiding any judgement calls as the person fielding the complaint from the other employee.  Do not let your emotions one way or the other regarding the parties involved taint the narrative.
3. Ask who was responsible for the incident, take full names down.
4. List any witnesses that were directly involved or a party to the incident, do not list a fellow employee that the party to the incident spoke with before coming to HR or does not have first hand knowledge of the incident to contribute.
5. Document where the incident took place was it on the premise of the business, was it off site.
6. Finally what dates and times did the incident(s) occur, this is somewhat coupled with the previous question, did this occur on site and during the work period, or was it before being clocked in for the day, outside of the building or on break.  Does not need to be down to the minute but should be a general estimation, i.e. before lunch on Tuesday the 23rd, after returning from first break on the 12th.
7. The last thing to do is to get the signature of the employee after you have entered the information on the form, this is to confirm that the information provided is accurate to the best of their knowledge as they have presented it  to you for documentation.  Have the employee print their name below signature to remove any confusion, and then date the form as of when it was signed.