Grievance letter to your employer

A grievance letter costs nothing and takes an evening, and it is probably the most wasted document in South African workplaces. Most complaints are raised standing in a corridor, remembered differently by the two people who were there, and forgotten inside a month. This letter turns the same complaint into a dated record your employer has to answer. What it is not is a shortcut to the CCMA, and that difference is most of what makes it work.

What this document does and when to use it

This is an internal document. It starts your employer's own grievance procedure, which is the process almost every disciplinary code sets out for complaints running upwards from an employee, as opposed to discipline running downwards from the employer.

It does three things at once. It fixes your version of the facts on the record with dates, before anybody's memory softens. It obliges the employer to engage, because most procedures commit the company to a meeting and a written outcome within a stated time. And it builds a paper trail, because a company that ignored three written complaints about a manager stands somewhere very different later than one that was never told.

Use it when something needs fixing and needs to be on record: unpaid overtime or short payment, a manager's conduct towards you, an unsafe practice, a policy applied to you but not to others, or a change to your duties or hours you never agreed to. Whether your employer can change your contract without your consent is a common trigger.

Do not use it where you have already been dismissed. A dismissal goes to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), not the grievance procedure, and the deadline is short. Use the CCMA referral checklist instead.

Before you send it: get these facts straight

The procedure. Ask for the grievance procedure in the disciplinary code or staff handbook and follow it exactly. It names who receives the grievance first, usually your immediate manager or human resources, and how long the company has to respond. Sending it to the wrong person hands the employer a free technical answer.

Your timeline. Build it before you write a word of the letter. One line per event: the date, who was present, what was said or done. Everything in paragraph 3 is lifted straight from it. If you cannot build the timeline, the grievance is not ready.

Your documents. Payslips, rosters, emails, messages, photographs. Copies only.

What you want to happen. Not "something must be done", but a number, a decision or a specific instruction. This is the hardest part of the letter and the part employers read most closely.

The clock, if one is already running. A grievance is internal and suspends nothing. If you are also inside a CCMA deadline, it keeps running. Check with the CCMA deadline calculator.

Walking through it, paragraph by paragraph

The address block and the heading. Your name, job title, employee number and contact details, then the date, then the employer's full legal name and address. The employee number is not decoration. It is how payroll and human resources find you. The heading then does something small and important: "FORMAL GRIEVANCE: [SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPLAINT]". The word formal tells the reader which procedure you are invoking, and the description means the letter can be filed and found again.

Paragraph 1 identifies you by role, workplace, start date and line manager. It sounds unnecessary in a small company, but your letter may be read months later by an outside adviser who knows none of it.

Paragraph 2 invokes the procedure. "I lodge this formal grievance in terms of the company's grievance procedure. I ask that it be dealt with in accordance with that procedure and that this letter be placed on the record." Those two sentences change the letter's status from a complaint to a step in a process the company itself wrote.

Paragraph 3 is the facts, and it is the heart of the letter. Each sub paragraph is one dated event: "On [DATE], [DESCRIBE WHAT HAPPENED, WHERE, AND WHO WAS PRESENT. STICK TO WHAT WAS SAID AND DONE]." Numbering matters more than style, because the response can then address 3.1 and 3.2 rather than the letter as a mood. Sub paragraph 3.4 is the one people leave out and should not: it records that you already raised the matter informally, with whom, and that nothing changed. That single line is what makes a formal grievance look reasonable rather than sudden.

Paragraph 4 names what has been breached, choosing between your contract, a named company policy, the disciplinary and grievance code, or the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997. Pick what you can actually point to. You do not need to quote law and should not invent it. "The overtime term in my contract dated 3 February" beats a vague reference to legislation.

Paragraph 5 states the effect on you in practical terms: the amount underpaid, the hours worked without pay, the effect on your ability to do your job. Employers act on quantified harm faster than on described unhappiness.

Paragraph 6 is what you want done, in up to three numbered requests, each an instruction the company could carry out: "Pay me the outstanding amount of R[AMOUNT] in respect of [PERIOD]." Vague requests get vague outcomes.

Paragraph 7 asks for the meeting, offers dates, and records your right to be accompanied by a fellow employee or a trade union representative. Naming dates removes the easiest excuse for delay.

Paragraph 8 lists the attachments, paragraph 9 asks for a written response, and paragraph 10 states that you raise the grievance in good faith. That last paragraph is not politeness for its own sake. It is what keeps a grievance from being characterised as insubordination. The receipt block at the foot is your proof of delivery if you hand the letter over in person.

A worked example

This example is illustrative only and the facts are invented.

Sipho Ndlovu is a warehouse assistant in Pinetown. Since January he has worked most Saturdays on a stocktake and has been paid overtime for none of them. He raised it twice with his supervisor, who said each time that payroll would sort it out.

He builds his timeline from his roster and clocking records, which gives him seven dated Saturdays. Paragraph 3 lists them: 11 January, 18 January, 1 February and so on, each with the hours worked and the supervisor on duty. In 3.4 he records both informal conversations, with dates and what was said.

Paragraph 4 points to the overtime term in his contract and to the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997. Paragraph 5 says he has worked 52 unpaid hours and gives the shortfall. Paragraph 6 asks for payment of that amount and for written confirmation that Saturday stocktake hours will be recorded as overtime in future. Paragraph 7 offers three dates and names a shop steward. He attaches six payslips, the rosters and the clocking report, emails the letter to his supervisor and human resources, and diarises a follow up ten working days later.

The mistakes that make one of these useless

Writing about a person instead of their conduct. "He is a bully" invites an argument about character. "On 14 May, in front of four colleagues, he said [X]" invites an investigation. The first version can also be turned back on you as an allegation you have to prove.

Asking for nothing specific. If paragraph 6 says only that you want the situation resolved, the employer will resolve it by holding a meeting and closing the file.

Sending it to the wrong person. Bypassing the first step in the procedure lets the company answer the process instead of the complaint.

Threatening the CCMA in the letter. It adds nothing, hardens the response, and is often read as bad faith. Your remedies exist whether or not you mention them.

Believing the grievance protects your CCMA deadline. It does not, and this is the mistake that costs the most, because it is only discovered after the deadline has gone.

Keeping no proof of delivery. A grievance nobody can prove was lodged is a grievance that was never lodged.

How to deliver or file it and prove you did

Send it by a method that produces evidence. Email to your manager and to human resources is usually best, because the sent item carries the date and the recipients. If you hand it over on paper, take two copies and have the receipt block signed and dated on your copy.

Save a copy somewhere that is not your work laptop or work email. If your employment ends suddenly, you lose access to both on the same afternoon.

Then diarise ten working days ahead, or the period in the procedure if it is shorter. If no meeting has happened and no written response has arrived, send a short follow up referring to the date of the original letter and asking when the meeting will be held. Keep that email too.

After the grievance meeting, send a brief email setting out who attended, what was said and what was agreed. It costs nothing and becomes part of the record whether or not the employer replies.

If it does not work

Use the internal appeal first. Most grievance procedures allow an appeal to a more senior manager, in writing, within a set period. Appeal even if you expect nothing from it, because an unused appeal is the first thing an employer points to later.

After that the routes are external and free. For pay, hours, leave and a certificate of service, a Department of Employment and Labour office deals with complaints about basic conditions of employment at no cost. For an unfair labour practice, such as an unfair suspension or a demotion, the CCMA or a bargaining council covering your industry takes the referral, and 90 days applies to those disputes. Trade unions and university law clinics advise for nothing, and Legal Aid South Africa on 0800 110 110 applies a means test.

If your position then becomes impossible, do not simply walk out. Resigning generally ends any unfair dismissal claim, and claiming constructive dismissal means proving the employer made continued employment intolerable. Read what constructive dismissal is and get advice first. If you are dismissed instead, the 30 calendar day clock starts and how to refer an unfair dismissal to the CCMA is your next stop.

LawMatch is not a law firm and this article is not legal advice.

Frequently asked questions

Can I be disciplined for lodging a grievance?

Lodging a genuine grievance through the correct procedure is a normal part of employment, and paragraph 10 records that you raise it in good faith. Keep the letter factual and free of insults or threats, because those, and not the grievance itself, give an employer something to act on.

Does a grievance stop my CCMA deadline?

No, and this is the single most important thing on this page. A grievance is internal. If you are dismissed, the 30 calendar days to refer the dismissal to the CCMA run from the date of dismissal whether or not your grievance or appeal is still going.

What if my employer has no grievance procedure?

Send the letter anyway, addressed to the most senior person available. Delete "in terms of the company's grievance procedure" from paragraph 2 and simply ask for a meeting and a written response within a reasonable period. The record is the point.

Can I bring someone into the meeting?

Most procedures allow a fellow employee or a trade union representative. Paragraph 7 puts the employer on notice, which is easier than asking at the door.

My grievance is about my manager. Do I still send it to him?

No. Where the procedure names your immediate manager but the grievance concerns that manager, send it to the next level up or to human resources and say in the letter why. That short explanation prevents the complaint being returned on a technicality.