Before the Complaint, There Were Hurdles

If you want a respectful workplace, you need more than a policy. You need a work environment where people feel comfortable bringing potential conflict forward. What you do before a complaint is just as important as what you do during and after one.

When an issue arises, we may assume that it is in the complainant’s best interest to report it. And when no complaints are made, it can be tempting to assume that all is well.

That is not always a fair assumption.

By the time someone makes a complaint, they have already overcome several hurdles. If they cannot get past those hurdles, you may never hear about the problem at all.

Is the process fair?

First, a potential complainant must believe the complaint and investigation processes will be fair.

They may review the workplace policy and consider how it applies to their situation. They may think about personal relationships, who holds decision-making power, potential bias or conflicts of interest, and whether the people involved have demonstrated fairness and open-mindedness in the past.

These perceptions matter. People who believe a process was fair are more likely to accept its outcome, even when the outcome is not in their favour.  By contrast, people who do not believe a process is fair may withhold their complaints.

Will the process make a difference?

Second, they need to believe that making a complaint will actually accomplish something.  Otherwise, why bother?

If they believe nothing meaningful will happen once the organization knows about the problem, they are more likely to remain silent.

And their assessment may not be based solely on how the organization has handled previous complaints. They may have no experience with that at all. Instead, they may look at how leadership responds to problems generally. Do leaders listen? Do they follow through? Do they address difficult issues, or avoid them? Do they take concerns seriously?  What happens when people express disagreement?

Before deciding whether to make a complaint, people are likely assessing more than the complaint process. They are assessing the organization itself.

Will making a complaint make things worse?

Third, a potential complainant needs to believe they will not suffer negative consequences for speaking up, even if their complaint is ultimately found to be without merit.

They may worry about damaged workplace relationships, being labelled as difficult, losing future opportunities, being passed over for promotion, losing their job, or facing retaliation or isolation from co-workers.

The potential benefit of making the complaint must outweigh the perceived cost.

That calculation can be very different from person to person.

Was it “bad enough”?

Fourth, the person has to decide whether what happened was bad enough to warrant making a complaint in the first place.

That is a deeply personal assessment. Someone may wonder whether what happened was simply the “rough and tumble” of workplace life. They may question whether they are overreacting, whether they are entitled to complain, or even whether they somehow deserved what happened.

The behaviour an organization tolerates helps shape those judgments.

If inappropriate behaviour is routinely dismissed as harmless, people may conclude that there is little point in raising it. If respectful behaviour is consistently expected and reinforced, people are more likely to recognize that something has crossed a line.

Zero complaints do not mean zero problems.

Sometimes, the absence of complaints simply means people cannot get past these preliminary hurdles.

There may be problems in your workplace that never reach HR, never reach a manager and never trigger an investigation. They remain below the surface.

Culture is about behaviour, not words or aspirations.

A policy can tell people what an organization expects. But the everyday behaviour of leaders, managers and employees tells them whether those expectations are real.

HR can help lead this work, but it cannot create the culture on its own. Ultimately, culture is built by everyone, and it starts at the top.

At the end of the day, these hurdles to making a complaint are really hurdles to surfacing workplace conflict.

A healthy workplace is not one where conflict never occurs. It is one where people can raise concerns, have difficult conversations, disagree respectfully and expect dysfunctional behaviour to be addressed.

Because silence almost never means satisfaction.