Bye bye AI?

Of course not! AI is clearly here to stay but the direction of travel suggests employers can take a much more robust approach to clear AI use in employee grievances and complaints. 

The case

The Fair Work Commission is Australia's workplace relations tribunal. In a recent case, it ordered  an employee to stop using AI to draft correspondence because it found that her AI-generated complaints had become ‘lengthy, wide-ranging, replete with generalisations, repetitive, and often couched in accusatory language’. This made it difficult for the employer to deal with her complaint, which actually had some genuine merit. The sheer volume of communication and its impenetrable nature put a stop to any meaningful conversation that could potentially have resolved matters and led to the employer effectively disengaging. The Commission therefore took the step of directing all future communications between the parties to be brief, accurate and respectful, and specifically prohibited the use of AI-generated correspondence. 

This is of course an Australian case. However, anecdotally Employment Tribunal judges are warning litigants in person of the risks of using AI and trying to dissuade them from relying upon AI to litigate their case themselves. This is analogous to the grievance scenario, especially as non-addressed grievances often turn into Employment Tribunal claims. 

What can you do?

I am sure many of us would sympathise with the employer who, when faced with a ‘war and peace’ grievance that leaves you none the wiser as to what the employee is concerned about, chose to disengage. The clear reminder of this case is to deal with a grievance. Failure to do so can expose an employer to employment risk, namely a constructive unfair dismissal claim (assuming they have qualifying service) and, depending on the facts, maybe a discrimination, victimisation or whistleblowing complaint.  

Remember AI can be very helpful. As an example, for employees with physical or mental health difficulties AI can provide a voice to the genuinely aggrieved. A blanket ban on the use of AI is unlikely to be appropriate. When presented with a rambling 50 page grievance, options to think about include:

• asking an employee to submit a succinct version, perhaps restricted to several pages (after all, Employment Tribunals often order witness statements to be restricted to a certain number of words);  
• requiring a meeting to discuss the grievance before you can commence dealing with any matters; and
• asking directly about whether it involved AI and highlighting the issue with it, emphasising that it might not help the employee resolve their issue.

Effectively, the aim is to get to the heart of the AI generated grievance as quickly as possible, then once the issues are clearly identified, the usual grievance process can proceed as usual. It might be worth thinking about your grievance policy and whether it needs updating to cover AI generated grievances and associated correspondence, perhaps with restrictive template formats or limits on grievances. 

If you need help with approaching grievances or with a particularly painful AI case, please visit our website or speak to your usual Stone King contact. We also have an Employment Rights Hub, which has lots of useful information and resources related to recent past and upcoming changes to employment law.