The Supreme Court stopped short of mandating that employers provide complaint procedures, but the justices did hold that employers may escape liability if they have a procedure in place and employees fail to use it. Procedures that don t allow employees to bypass their supervisors provide no legal defense, the Supreme Court ruled. As a result, complaint procedures must allow employees to speak to someone other than their supervisors. The more people available to hear complaints from employees, the easier the complaint procedure is to use-and the less reasonable it is for workers to fail to take advantage of it. So, it makes sense to provide employees with multiple points of access, in addition to their supervisors.
Some employers require employees to file complaints in writing.
The advantage of this system is that employers can prove that employees failed to use the complaint procedure. Yet this requirement has weaknesses because employers cannot legally ignore oral complaints. Moreover, the written requirement surrenders to the employee the power of the pen. If you require employees to put their complaints in writing, what you may get instead are documents written by their lawyers. Accept complaints in either verbal or written form, but require employees to file appeals in writing if they are dissatisfied with the way their complaints initially were handled.