Give a Complaint Somewhere to Go When the Senior Person Is the Subject
In a partner-led firm, a complaint about a partner has no obvious home, because the people who would handle it are the partner's peers or juniors. We help you set up separate routes for complaints and for conduct, name receivers who are independent of the reporting line, define the serious breaches, and keep investigation records that can be read later. The partners decide outcomes; we give them a route that does not depend on who the parties are.
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Share your requirementsThe starting point
What Happens When the Complaint Is About a Partner?
Most firms handle disputes through the person's own manager, which works until the manager is the problem. Where the person complained of is senior, juniors stay silent, peers close ranks, and the issue surfaces as a resignation. Matters of confidentiality breach or conflict of interest need handling too, and are often treated informally.
We help you set up routes that work whoever is involved, and records that show what was done.
You may be experiencing:
- Associates unwilling to raise concerns about a manager or partner because they will continue to work under them.
- Complaints and conduct issues dealt with in the same way, so a person who raises a concern is treated like one who breached a rule.
- No named receiver outside the reporting line for complaints about behaviour, workload or fairness.
- Confidentiality, independence or conflict-of-interest breaches discussed in corridors, with no written record.
- Investigations conducted by someone close to the people involved, with notes kept in personal files.
- Similar conduct met with different responses depending on the seniority of the person concerned.
- Staff at client sites or deployed with a client unsure whether to approach the firm or the client.
What we can help with
Our Employee Relations Services for Professional Services Firms
Grievance Procedure
A written route for people to raise concerns about work, treatment or fairness, with stages, timelines, and a statement of what the person raising it can expect.
Independent Receivers
Name receivers outside the line, such as a senior partner from another practice, an HR lead or an external adviser, and say how a person reaches them. Include a route for complaints about the managing group.
Disciplinary and Conduct Procedure
A separate route for breaches of firm rules: stages, who decides, the right to respond and the standard of evidence expected before any decision.
Serious Breaches
Define which matters are treated as serious in a professional setting, such as breach of client confidentiality, concealed conflicts, falsified records or misuse of client information, and how they are escalated.
Investigation Method and Format
Set who may investigate, how the person investigating is chosen to avoid conflicts, how interviews and evidence are recorded and how findings are written.
Warnings and Escalation
Define the sequence of responses available, from a conversation to a written warning and onwards, and who may approve each. Ensure that the same sequence applies across levels.
Consistency Review
A periodic look at cases and outcomes across practices and levels to see whether similar matters have been handled in similar ways.
Records and Retention
A case record template, access limits and a retention rule for each type of file, kept apart from the personnel record where appropriate.
The deliverables
What You Receive
Depending on the agreed scope, you receive:
- A grievance procedure with named receivers and timelines.
- A disciplinary and conduct procedure.
- A list of serious breaches and the escalation route for each.
- An investigation format for notes, evidence and findings.
- A warning and escalation guide.
- A case record template with access limits.
- A manager briefing on handling the first conversation.
Step by step
How We Work
Understand How Matters Are Handled Now
We discuss recent matters in general terms with the managing group and HR, without naming individuals, to see where the present route breaks down.
Design the Routes
We draft the grievance and conduct procedures, name the receivers and write the serious-breach list for the partners to decide.
Build the Investigation Tools
We prepare the formats, the conflict check on investigators and the case record template.
Brief Partners and Managers
We explain the routes to partners and managers, including what to do when a concern lands on them directly.
Introduce, Record and Review
We help announce the routes to staff, record a baseline and review the cases after a period for consistency.
The difference
Routes People Will Actually Use
Written employee-relations routes help the firm to:
We do not promise outcomes. We record a baseline before work starts, covering concerns raised and the routes used, time taken to close matters and the consistency of responses, and report against it, so you can see what changed and what did not.
- Give people a safe route when the concern is about a senior person.
- Keep complaints and conduct matters separate.
- Handle breaches of confidentiality and conflict rules with a defined process.
- Investigate with a method that does not depend on who is involved.
- Respond in a similar way to similar matters.
- Keep clear records that can be read later.
Find your fit
Who This Service Is For
Partner-Led Firms
Where the people with authority are also the people most likely to be complained of.
Firms With Several Offices
Where each office handles disputes differently.
Firms Handling Sensitive Client Information
Where confidentiality and conflict breaches need a set procedure.
Engineering and Design Consultancies
Where project leads and discipline heads direct the same people.
Staffing Companies
Where deployed staff have concerns about the client and need to know whom to approach.
How it usually shows up in professional services
Employee relations in professional firms are shaped by hierarchy. Partners own the practice, the client and the career, so an associate with a concern about a partner or a senior manager weighs the risk of raising it against the next appraisal. Complaints about workload, credit for work, behaviour in client meetings or treatment by a reviewer tend to surface late, usually in an exit conversation. The firm often has one or two people who act as informal listeners, and the route depends on who is trusted. Conduct issues, such as breach of confidentiality, misuse of client information, a conflict not declared or dishonest time recording, are handled by the partners case by case, and outcomes differ with the seniority and billing of the person concerned. Records are thin, and the firm may find it hard to show what was decided and why if a matter is later challenged.
Common challenges
Where it goes wrong in professional services
No route past the partner
A complaint about a partner has no independent receiver, so it is often not made at all.
Outcomes follow seniority
Similar conduct is treated more lightly when the person is a strong biller.
Confidentiality breaches are handled informally
Serious matters are settled by conversation and leave no record.
Concerns arrive at exit
People say what was wrong only after they have decided to go.
A better process
What a working version looks like
- 01
Name independent receivers
At least two named people, one of them outside the partner group, to whom a complaint about any partner can go. The grievance and disciplinary process sets the route.
- 02
Separate complaint from conduct
A grievance route for concerns raised by employees and a disciplinary route for breaches by employees, with different steps.
- 03
Define the serious breaches
A list of conduct matters, such as confidentiality, conflicts and false time records, with the investigation steps for each.
- 04
Investigate and record
A fair hearing, a written finding and a decision with reasons, kept in a confidential file.
- 05
Review for consistency
Once a year, compare outcomes across cases and across levels to see whether seniority changed the result.
What to check this week
- Ask an associate where they would take a concern about a partner.
- List the last conduct cases and compare the outcomes by seniority.
- Check whether a confidentiality breach has ever been recorded.
- Find out who the informal listeners are and whether they have been briefed.
- Look at how long the oldest open complaint has been waiting.
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 professional services
The parts of employee relations that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
Relations in a Partnership Environment
Where the person raising and the person complained of may both be senior.
What this coversHide
Relations in a Partnership Environment
Where the person raising and the person complained of may both be senior.
What this coversHideProfessional firms have a structural relations problem: partners hold both management authority and ownership, and a complaint about a partner has nowhere obvious to go.
- A route that works where the subject of a complaint is a partner
- Independent handling arrangements defined in advance
- Work allocation and progression disputes handled fairly
- Utilisation and chargeability disagreements addressed honestly
- Harassment and conduct concerns routed formally, immediately
- Consistency across teams and offices
- Junior staff able to raise concerns without career consequence
- Central record independent of the practice group
Defining the independent route before it is needed is the essential step. Designed during a live complaint, it will be contested, and the process is then arguing with itself.
Questions on this, in professional services
A person raising a concern should not be treated as though they had broken a rule. Keeping the two routes apart, with different receivers and different purposes, makes people more willing to speak and makes conduct decisions fairer.
Someone outside that partner's line and, where possible, outside the practice. Many firms nominate a senior partner from another practice, an HR lead or an external adviser. The route must say who receives a complaint about each of them.
We can support the process, such as the format, the conflict check and the notes. The firm decides who investigates and who decides. Where a matter is serious or legal advice is needed, involve a qualified professional.
No. GullyHR does not give legal advice. Confirm the obligations that apply to your firm and to a particular matter with a qualified professional before relying on a procedure or acting on a case.
Define in advance what counts as serious, who is told, how evidence is secured and what the response may be. Handling them under a written route gives a fair and consistent response, even when the person involved is senior.
Yes. A restricted case record with stages, dates and access limits can be configured on the GullyHR platform or in your own system, so that nothing is lost between the people handling it.
To a named receiver who is not part of the partner's reporting line, such as another partner or an external adviser. Without such a route, people stay silent or leave.
Through the written conduct procedure, with an investigation, a decision with reasons and a record. Confirm the steps with a qualified professional and apply them the same way at every level.
No. A grievance is a concern raised by an employee and a disciplinary matter is a breach by an employee. Mixing them confuses the people involved and weakens both.
Use written definitions of conduct matters, a standard way of recording decisions and a periodic review of cases side by side.
Make the Complaint Route Work for Everyone
Tell us how concerns are raised in your firm and where you think the present route would fail. We will discuss how to design the routes and the records.
Prefer to talk first? Call +91 80958 58589 or write to hello@gullyhr.com.
Discuss Your Grievance Process
Share a few details, without naming people or cases.
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 professional services.
To run this in a system rather than on paper, see engagement and employee relations software.
Other HR topics for professional services
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 professional services, or another industry.