On why vague grievance resolutions leave problems unresolved, learning impossible, and everyone worse off.
You raise a grievance. You’ve documented the problem carefully. You’ve provided evidence. You’ve waited through the process. Then comes the outcome: ‘We are partially upholding your grievance.’ It’s a phrase designed to sound fair, like compromise, like the organisation has taken the grievance seriously enough to acknowledge some validity while maintaining reasonable limits. What it actually does is avoid responsibility while sounding responsible.
You don’t know what was upheld. You don’t know what wasn’t. You don’t know what changes, if any, will be made. You don’t know what the organisation learned. And so nothing gets resolved.
What Gets Lost
When a grievance is partially upheld without explanation, several essential things fail to happen. First, accountability doesn’t happen. If it’s never made clear that someone did something wrong, they don’t know to change it. The person or team who caused the problem doesn’t receive feedback. They don’t experience consequence. They don’t learn. The next person will experience the same thing.
Second, systemic change doesn’t happen. If the issue was part of a broader problem—the way accommodation requests are handled, the way grievances are treated, the way discrimination manifests in your organisation—that doesn’t get addressed. The pattern continues.
Third, the person who raised the grievance is left in limbo. They don’t know if they were wronged or not. They don’t know if the action they’re supposed to take is acknowledgement of harm or refusal to acknowledge it. They’re left to guess what ‘partially’ means. And guessing erodes trust in the process itself.
There’s also the erosion of trust in the organisation. If the organisation can’t or won’t be clear about what they found, why did you bother raising it? If the outcome is ambiguous, what good is the process?
What Clear Outcomes Require
A clear grievance outcome says: ‘We found that X happened. That was a breach of policy or violated your rights or was discriminatory. Here is what we are doing about it. Here is what is changing. Here is how we are addressing the harm. Here is what feedback is being given to the people involved. Here is how we are ensuring it doesn’t happen again.’ The clarity matters. It allows learning. It allows closure.
Alternatively, it might say: ‘We found that X was not supported by evidence. We found that Y was a misjudgement rather than policy breach. Here is why. Here is what we learned. Here is what we are changing to prevent similar situations.’ Even if you’re not upheld, clarity allows you to understand why and to move forward.
What it should never say is ‘we’re partially upholding this’ without then explaining what that means and what is changing. Because that leaves everyone worse off. The person who raised the grievance doesn’t have closure. The team doesn’t have feedback. The organisation doesn’t improve. Partial upholding without clarity is a way of ending the process without resolving the problem.
Why Organisations Do This
Partial upholding without clarity is often a way of avoiding responsibility. It sounds like a compromise, like fairness. But it’s actually a way of saying: we don’t want to commit to either finding you right or finding you wrong. We want to end this process.
Sometimes it’s because the organisation itself is confused about what happened. The investigation wasn’t thorough. The facts are messy. But if that’s the case, that should be said. That’s learning. That’s an opening for doing better.
Mostly, partial upholding without clarity is a way of closing a process without resolving the problem. It protects no one. It doesn’t vindicate the person who raised the grievance. It doesn’t correct the behaviour. It doesn’t change the system. All it does is end the process. That’s not justice.