From workplace bullies & bad leadership to unsafe working conditions, every organization has its own set of problems to worry about. But one thing is for sure – no organization can thrive without a formal system for employees to share their concerns about a potentially harmful or unlawful incident happening at work.
A General Complaint Form is probably the best place to start here. Whether you go for a paper-based form or an e-version – your goal is the same. To lay down a structured process for documenting and reporting any incident that may violate your company policies or local laws.
Free, print-ready, and 100% editable – this template can be used by supervisors, line managers, or HR officials to gather the information they need to process internal complaints. As an HR tool, this has the dual benefit of both empowering employees and helping HR managers record formal complaints and make more informed decisions. As a company-verified document, complaint forms also serve as admissible evidence in a court of law when conflicts escalate or require legal resolution.
Here’s what a typical Complaint Form includes:
- Employee details
- Details of the complaint or incident
- Impact on the employee or company
- Desired outcome
- Actions taken
- Relevant signatures
Why Does Your Company Need One?
- To create a written record of each complaint
- For internal auditing purposes
- As a basis for claims in future litigation
- To promote a culture of transparency
- To give voice to individual workers
Employee Information
Any current employee of a company can file a complaint, so make sure you get all the personal details of the complainant first thing to confirm their employment status!
Add details such as their name, employee ID, department, work location, email, phone number, and of course, the position they work in.
You also need to identify their direct supervisor or line manager; this is important for tracking the success of your complaint program and ensuring accountability at the managerial or departmental level.
Incident Details
This is arguably the most important section in a complaint form, where you add basic details about the incident, including when and where it happened.
Now proceed to add more details about the incident, like names of the individuals involved or the factors that led to an aggravation of circumstances. We added ample blank space for you to fill in this information, but you can always edit our template to add more if needed.
Impact of Incident
You can think of this section of the form as the most subjective part of the complaint form. Use this open-ended section to delve into how the incident affects or continues to affect you – personally, professionally, or emotionally.
For HR managers, this information is vital because it helps them understand how severe the impact is (critical or trivial) or how many people it affects (just the one employee or a bigger team). This more informed perspective then allows you to better assess the situation and take the right measures to resolve the complaint.
Here’s a quick example of the content you can expect to find in this section:
“The unsafe working conditions in the warehouse have made me fearful of getting injured. I have had to stop lifting heavier items, which has affected my ability to contribute to the team’s output. I feel frustrated and worried every day I go to work, which is taking a toll on my mental health. I’ve also noticed that my productivity has decreased because I’m constantly distracted by the thought of potential injuries.”
When filling this section, ask yourself:
- Who was, or is affected by the incident?
- Has the incident affected your performance or productivity?
- Has the incident negatively affected interpersonal relations, and hence, team work?
- Do you bear any feelings of anxiety, fear or stress as a result of the incident?
- Has the incident caused you to miss out on opportunities for growth, say, a promotion?
Witnesses
The next part of the template is where we collect information about any witnesses. From a legal & disciplinary point of view, this is the most crucial part of a complaint form. In this section, try to gather as much relevant information as possible to prove that a complaint can be backed up by substantial, verifiable evidence.
Once you identify the witnesses (including their contact details), you need to specify what relationship they have with the incident – for example, did they see one coworker making inappropriate jokes or comments at another? Or witnessed someone being treated unfairly because of their race, gender, religion, or age?
While we only added space for you to identify two witnesses, you can add as many as you need by using an editable version of the Form.
Evidence
In the blank space provided, furnish any evidence that proves a certain incident transpired or that certain individuals were involved in an incident while others were not. This can be a list of attachments and descriptions of the evidence. Regardless of the specifics of your complaint, this section provides the fodder for all future official or legal proceedings around the complaint, so make sure you have a good think about potential sources or pieces of evidence before submitting the form to your HR Department.
Previous Occurrences
It is common for complaint forms to inquire into whether a similar incident has happened before. This information is crucial for HR purposes because it tells you if an incident can be attributed to a broader or more systemic issue. In cases involving unprofessional or discriminatory behaviour, use this section to identify if employee actions were an isolated event or part of a recurring pattern.
Having this information helps you build context so you can understand the full scope and severity of the incident – and how likely it is to happen in the future. This can guide you, in terms of what measures (if any) should be taken to resolve the complaint and how urgently so.
Desired Outcome
As the employee affected by the incident, it only makes sense to assume they have a fair idea of how the situation can be changed or resolved.
This section is designed to get the employee’s perspective on what the desired outcome of the complaint should be – or what concrete actions can be taken by the company’s management to resolve it. Remember, HR professionals and senior managers will carefully go through your recommendations – so make sure you are being specific and, of course, realistic!
Declaration & Signature
As with every official document, you need a dated signature from the party submitting the form to verify that the information provided is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge.
By signing this form, the complaining party agrees to take on the legal consequences of their words and actions, while realizing that false or misleading information can lead to disciplinary action or them losing their job.
Office Use Only
This section has been added for internal record-keeping purposes and is only to be filled out by an official of the HR department. If you don’t have a dedicated HR division in your company, this section will be filled by a senior member of your administration or management.
This section provides a paper trail of the complaint filed by employees by answering the following:
- When was the complaint first received?
- Who received the complaint? (Usually the HR manager)
- What was the initial assessment? This bit is important when determining the validity or seriousness of a complaint.
- What actions (if any) were taken to address the complaint? Corrective actions are usually taken by supervisors, managers, and HR staff.
In our template, you can also specify a follow-up date to determine if the complaint has been satisfactorily resolved or requires further action on the management’s part.
Mapping the Law (for US Companies)
If your company is based in the U.S, you might want to look into the following employment laws:
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Prohibits discrimination in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. (Source)
- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): Prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including jobs. It requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities. (Source)
- Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA): Protects workers aged 40 and older from discrimination based on age in hiring, firing, promotion, and compensation decisions. (Source)
- Equal Pay Act (EPA): Mandates that men and women be paid equally for equal work in the same establishment. (Source)
- Whistleblower Protection Act: Protects federal employees from retaliation for reporting misconduct, illegal activities, or violations of laws by their employer or government. Covers a wide range of disclosures, from corruption to safety violations. (Source)
- Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA): Ensures safe and healthy working conditions by setting and enforcing standards, providing training, and encouraging continual improvement in workplace safety. (Source)
- Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA): Establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards. Sets a minimum wage for employees and mandates overtime pay for those who work over 40 hours a week in certain jobs. (Source)
- National Labor Relations Act (NLRA): Protects employees’ rights to form unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take part in other activities related to collective labor action. (Source)
The laws above are all federal laws – that is, applicable across the US. However, employers must comply with both federal and state laws, so you should also look up more localized laws. For example, individual states may have their own wage and hour laws that provide greater protections, such as higher minimum wages or more stringent overtime rules.
Who Is Our Template For?
- Individual employees
- HR Departments
- Managers & Supervisors
- Senior Leadership & Executives
- Legal or Compliance Teams
- External Investigators or Consultants
When Employee Complaint Forms are Used
- Discrimination or Harassment: If someone at work is treated unfairly based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, or disability, you can use a complaint form like this one to report these actions in a safe environment.
- Workplace Safety: Employees, especially those working in high-risk industries such as construction or mining – can use complaint forms to report unsafe working conditions or violations of safety regulations that may put their health or well-being at risk.
- Ethical Violations: If an employee comes to learn of unethical practices like fraud, bribery, or conflicts of interest, they can file a complaint form to highlight the issue to the senior management or company owner.
- Hostile Work Environment: If employees feel that they’re being bullied or that the work environment is too toxic or hostile, they may file a complaint to address the issue formally.
- Violation of Company Policies: This form can also be used in the event of company rules, codes of conduct, or procedures being violated.
To Sum Up
Whether you are being bullied by a coworker on account of your race or religion, or being given a hard time by specific clients or third-party vendors – chances are, before your company gets down to doing something about it, you’ll be asked to provide a written account of what happened, how it affects you, and what you think is the right way going forward.
As an integral part of a company’s policies and procedures, complaint forms help you (HR folks!) keep a record of incidents that may have a potentially adverse impact on productivity, work culture or reputation as an organisation, or even the physical safety and mental well-being of individual employees.
It bears to note that this form is only a General Complaint Form, so it can be used to process any nature of complaint. There are separate forms in use for specific types of complaints, such as workplace harassment, which will have specialised sections for gathering relevant information.
The Employee Complaint Form should also not be confused with an employee grievance form. Although the contents of both forms are the same, the intent differs. While a complaint form is used in case of misconduct from the employees, a grievance form is more commonly used for misconduct in company policies, employment terms, etc.
Use our free and fillable Employment Complaint Form template to process complaints and create a safer and transparent work environment where employees feel valued & heard!
