Employees are using artificial intelligence to prepare workplace grievances, tribunal claims, and requests for personal information, prompting HR departments to reconsider how they respond to increasingly formal complaints.
Research highlighted by Cezanne HR found that 31% of survey respondents who mentioned AI described employees using it to prepare complaints, employment tribunal documents, grievances, or subject access requests.
The figure relates specifically to respondents who mentioned AI, rather than the entire survey population. Nevertheless, the findings identify a change in how employment concerns are being communicated.
AI tools allow employees to organise information, produce structured arguments, and incorporate legal terminology without necessarily possessing specialist employment law knowledge. While this can help individuals explain their concerns, generated documents may also contain inaccurate legal references, unnecessary allegations, or wording that obscures the original dispute.
Caroline Gleeson, chief people officer at Cezanne HR, has warned that highly formal correspondence can encourage employers to respond defensively before establishing what has actually happened.
In some circumstances, the employee’s underlying concern may be relatively straightforward, despite being presented through several pages of legal arguments. The risk is that management interprets the language as a sign of escalating conflict rather than examining the substance of the complaint.
Employment procedures still govern grievances —
The Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures establishes expectations for employers and employees when workplace complaints arise.
Employers should attempt to resolve concerns informally where appropriate. If that is unsuccessful or unsuitable, employees should normally raise a formal grievance in writing, explaining the nature of the problem.
The employer must then investigate the relevant facts, arrange an appropriate meeting, and provide the employee with an opportunity to explain their concerns. Employees also have the right to appeal the outcome of a formal grievance.
The use of AI does not change those obligations. An employer cannot establish whether a complaint is justified simply by examining how the document was written, and a lengthy legal argument does not necessarily require a more adversarial response.
Managers and HR professionals need to identify the allegations, supporting evidence, and outcome being sought. Where the complaint is unclear, asking the employee to explain the underlying issue may be more useful than addressing every automatically generated argument separately.
Formal procedures remain necessary where the circumstances warrant them, including allegations involving discrimination, harassment, or serious misconduct.
New guidance addresses AI-assisted data requests —
The Information Commissioner’s Office has published separate guidance on handling subject access requests prepared using AI, recognising that individuals are increasingly using the technology to exercise their data protection rights.
The guidance, published on 11 November, makes clear that a request is not invalid simply because AI was used to prepare it.
Organisations must apply the existing legal framework, even where a request includes irrelevant legislation, confusing wording, or inaccurate information. The central consideration is whether the individual is requesting access to their personal data.
Employers can seek clarification where necessary, but AI use alone does not establish that a request is complex, excessive, or unreasonable.
The ordinary response period remains one month, subject to the existing provisions governing identity verification, clarification, and extensions where the circumstances justify them.
The ICO also recommends making request procedures easy to understand and ensuring employees who handle correspondence are not intimidated by unnecessarily complicated documents.
Together, the Cezanne research and the regulator’s guidance show how AI is changing the presentation of workplace complaints without changing employers’ underlying responsibilities. HR departments must still establish the facts, follow appropriate procedures, and distinguish legitimate legal obligations from unreliable generated content.
