Handle Complaints and Conduct Cases Fairly, Including When the Client Is the Cause
Small agencies tend to deal with complaints informally, through the person nearest the problem. That works until the complaint is about that person, or about a client, or about credit for a campaign. We help you set up a grievance route, a conduct procedure and a way of recording cases, so that similar cases are handled alike and the agency can show what was decided and why.
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Share your requirementsThe starting point
Where Does a Complaint Go When It Is About the Boss?
Agency relations problems frequently begin outside the agency. A client shouts at a junior account executive, a founder reassigns a creative's credit, or a team lead keeps asking for late nights. Without a defined route, the agency decides case by case, and staff learn which complaints are safe to make.
We help you set out clear routes, with a record that does not depend on who dealt with the case.
You may be experiencing:
- Complaints that go to the account lead, who is often the person complained about.
- Clients who behave badly towards staff, and a leadership that absorbs it as part of the business.
- Disagreements over who gets credit or portfolio rights that are settled by the loudest voice.
- Conduct concerns about entertainment, messaging or behaviour at client events handled in private and never recorded.
- Similar issues dealt with differently on different accounts, depending on the manager.
- Freelancers and contractors with no route to raise a concern at all.
- Notes of difficult conversations kept in personal files, so the agency cannot show what happened.
What we can help with
Our Employee Relations Services for Agencies
Grievance Route and Receivers
Design a route for concerns that offers more than one person to approach, including someone outside the account team and a route when the concern is about a director or founder.
Conduct and Disciplinary Procedure
Write a procedure for conduct concerns that separates them from grievances, sets out who investigates, how the person concerned is heard and who decides the outcome.
Client Behaviour Towards Staff
Agree how the agency responds when a client treats staff badly: how it is reported, who raises it with the client, what happens if it continues and how staff are told the outcome.
Credit and Work-ownership Disputes
Create a route for disagreements over attribution, portfolio use and ownership of work, with an early conversation, a decision-maker and a written outcome.
Harassment and Serious Conduct Routing
Set out how serious concerns are received, who is informed, how confidentiality is handled and how the process links to any committee or formal channel you maintain.
Investigation Format
Prepare a proportionate format for fact-finding: terms of reference, who is interviewed, how statements are recorded and how findings are written.
Consistency Review
Review cases periodically across accounts, teams and levels to check that similar issues have received similar treatment, and to see where patterns suggest a wider problem.
Case Records and Retention
Set up a central case record kept apart from the account team, with a standard template, access rules and a retention period you have confirmed.
The deliverables
What You Receive
Depending on the agreed scope, you can expect:
- A grievance procedure with named receivers and an alternative route.
- A conduct procedure kept separate from the grievance route.
- A client behaviour response guide.
- A credit and attribution dispute route.
- An investigation format and case record template.
- A routing note for serious conduct concerns.
- A consistency review method.
- Training for managers on receiving and handling concerns.
Step by step
How We Work
Review How Cases Were Handled
We look at recent concerns and how they were dealt with, from the records that exist and from conversations with leaders, to see where the route failed or worked.
Decide the Principles
With your leadership we agree what the agency will always do, such as hearing both sides, recording outcomes and protecting the person who raised a concern.
Draft Procedures and Formats
We write the routes, templates and guidance in plain language so that a busy team lead can follow them on the day.
Brief Managers
We walk managers through what to do and what not to do when a concern is raised, using realistic situations from agency life.
Review the Cases
Before work starts we record how concerns are handled today. We then review cases against that baseline after a period of use.
The difference
Handle Cases in a Way You Can Explain
A defined relations process helps your agency to:
We do not promise outcomes. We record a baseline before work starts, covering how concerns are currently received, how long cases take to close and whether records exist, and report against it, so you can see what changed and what did not. Employee relations, disciplinary and workplace-conduct obligations vary and change; GullyHR does not give legal advice, so please confirm the obligations that apply to you with a qualified professional.
- Give people a place to take a concern that is not the account lead.
- Treat similar cases alike across teams.
- Respond to client behaviour as an agency decision.
- Settle credit disputes through a clear route.
- Show what was decided and why.
- Spot patterns before they become exits.
Find your fit
Who This Service Is For
Founder-led Agencies
Create a route for concerns about the founders themselves.
Agencies with Difficult Client Relationships
Decide how staff are protected from client behaviour.
Growing Agencies Whose Informal Approach Has Strained
Replace goodwill with a procedure as the team grows.
Agencies Working with Many Freelancers
Give flexible workers a clear way to raise concerns.
How it usually shows up in marketing, advertising and creative
In an agency, complaints are commonly raised informally, to a team lead or a founder, and resolved in conversation. That works while the firm is small. As it grows, the same route fails when the complaint is about the lead or the founder. Issues tend to cluster around workload and utilisation, credit for work, client conduct towards staff, and relationships inside account teams. Conduct problems, such as sharing client material or behaving badly at client events, are dealt with by whoever notices. Warnings are rarely written. Freelancers sit outside any route, so a complaint from or about a freelancer has no home. Records are kept in memory and in chat, and when a person leaves in a dispute, nobody can show what was raised or what was done. Similar cases in different teams end differently.
Common challenges
Where it goes wrong in marketing, advertising and creative
The route runs through the person complained about
A grievance about a lead or founder has nowhere independent to go.
Conduct and complaints are mixed
A genuine workload complaint and a conduct matter are handled in the same informal way.
Freelancers have no route
Disputes about scope, payment or behaviour with freelancers are handled ad hoc.
Nothing is recorded
When a case becomes a dispute, there is no note of what was said or decided.
A better process
What a working version looks like
- 01
Name the receivers
At least two people outside the line, one of whom is senior, who receive complaints. Staff know who they are.
- 02
Keep complaint and conduct routes apart
A grievance procedure and a disciplinary procedure, each with steps and timelines. The grievance and disciplinary process sets them.
- 03
Write a short investigation format
What was alleged, who was spoken to, what was found and what was decided.
- 04
Cover client behaviour
A clear step the agency takes when a client mistreats staff, and a way for staff to raise it.
- 05
Define the freelancer route
Terms for disputes and conduct for freelancers and partners, with a named contact.
What to check this week
- Ask staff who they would go to if the complaint was about a founder.
- Find the last conduct matter and see what was recorded.
- Compare outcomes for two similar cases in different teams.
- Check whether freelancer terms say what happens in a dispute.
- Look for the written steps used when a client mistreats staff.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies depends on your establishment, your state and your sector, and it changes. This page describes a practice; it does not state a legal position.
What this looks like in marketing, advertising and creative
The parts of employee relations that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
Relations in a Client-Pressured Environment
Where the client's behaviour becomes your staff's problem.
What this coversHide
Relations in a Client-Pressured Environment
Where the client's behaviour becomes your staff's problem.
What this coversHideAgency relations issues frequently originate outside the agency. Client conduct, unreasonable demands and last-minute changes land on staff, and the agency decides whether to absorb or pass them through.
- Client behaviour toward staff addressed by the agency, not endured
- Workload and utilisation disputes handled honestly
- Credit and attribution disagreements resolved explicitly
- Interpersonal and team conflict addressed early
- Harassment and conduct concerns routed formally
- Consistency across accounts and teams
- Freelancer and contractor relationships handled distinctly
- Central record independent of the account team
An agency that will not raise a client's conduct with the client teaches its staff that the agency's commercial interest outranks their working conditions, and the good ones leave first.
Questions on this, in marketing, advertising and creative
A grievance is a concern raised by a person about how they are treated. A disciplinary matter is a concern the agency raises about someone's conduct or performance. Keeping the two routes separate helps each be handled fairly.
It can, and we help you decide how. We set out who speaks to the client, what is said, how the matter is recorded and what the agency does if the behaviour continues, up to changing or ending the engagement.
By having a rule in advance about who is named, and a short route for disagreement: an early conversation, a decision by someone senior who was not involved, and a written outcome. The rule is agreed while people are employed, not when someone leaves.
Often a lighter version applies. Freelancers sit outside most employee processes, but they still need a place to raise a concern. Whether and how a procedure applies to them depends on the relationship, so confirm that with a qualified professional.
No legal advice. We design procedures and formats, and can help prepare for an investigation, but obligations around process and fairness vary. Please confirm the position with a qualified professional, particularly for serious cases or where employment may end.
To a named person outside that line, often an independent director or an external adviser. The agency should state this route and tell staff about it.
It should be treated as a workplace concern the agency owns. Record it, take it to the client and tell the staff member what was done.
Use one written procedure, record every case in one place and review cases together from time to time. Confirm any point of law with a qualified professional.
The complaint, who handled it, what was found, the decision and the reason. Keep them away from the account team and limit who can read them.
Give People a Fair Route to Raise a Concern
If complaints go to whoever is nearest, or client behaviour is simply endured, set up a defined process before the next case arrives.
Prefer to talk first? Call +91 80958 58589 or write to hello@gullyhr.com.
Book an Employee Relations Consultation
Tell us about your agency and how concerns are handled today. Please do not include names or details of any individual case.
The general method — what employee relations covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the grievance and disciplinary process page. What is above is the part that differs for marketing, advertising and creative.
To run this in a system rather than on paper, see engagement and employee relations software.
Other HR topics for marketing, advertising and creative
Where to start
Most engagements begin with a review of how this runs in your business today, then a written process and the sequence to implement it.
See all HR topics for marketing, advertising and creative, or another industry.