Key causes of individual grievances

Covering Assessment Criterion 3.2 of 5HR01 Employment Relationship Management, this video focuses on the key causes of individual grievances — those arising from concerns affecting a single employee or a small group rather than the workforce collectively. The video works through seven distinct cause categories: poor management, lack of flexibility, inequality in treatment, unfair rules, workload, working conditions, and grading issues. Each is treated as a discrete area of analysis, positioning them as the building blocks for identifying and responding to grievance patterns in an organisational context.

Several pieces of legislation feature throughout the discussion as reference points for specific cause categories. The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 is addressed in relation to flexibility grievances, while the Equality Act 2010 — including its protected characteristics such as sex, race, disability and age — is brought in when examining inequality in treatment. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 is referenced in connection with working conditions and stress-related workload concerns. The video also introduces the concept of comparative justice when discussing how employees assess fairness in their treatment relative to colleagues, and it touches on the relevance of rule reasonableness in the context of unfair and constructive dismissal claims.

Grading grievances receive dedicated attention, with job evaluation methodology and pay structures considered alongside the status and recognition dimensions that grading disputes frequently involve. The video also highlights how individual grievance causes rarely operate in isolation — a workload grievance, for instance, may simultaneously reflect concerns about management capability or perceived inequality. This intersecting nature of causes is presented as a practical consideration for HR professionals analysing grievances under AC 3.2, and the video concludes by signposting collective grievances and grievance pattern analysis as the subject of subsequent content in the series.