What Evidence Should You Include With a Workplace Grievance?

You do not need a perfect file to raise a concern

Waiting until you have documentary proof of everything usually means waiting too long, and memories fade in the meantime. A grievance asks the employer to investigate; it is not a court bundle. What you provide should help someone else understand what happened and where to look.

Why contemporaneous records matter

A note written on the day carries more weight than the same account reconstructed six months later, because it was made before anyone knew it would matter. Keep it plain: date, time, place, who was there, what was said or done, how you responded. Store it somewhere you will still be able to reach if your work account is suspended — but do not remove confidential company material from the business to do it.

Evidence people commonly rely on

• • emails — including the ones you sent at the time raising something
• • Teams, Slack or WhatsApp messages
• • letters and formal correspondence
• • meeting notes, agendas and minutes
• • screenshots, with the date and sender visible
• • calendar entries, invitations and cancellations
• • rotas and shift patterns
• • performance records, appraisals and objectives
• • the relevant workplace policies themselves
• • names of people who were present
• • your own dated notes
• • any previous complaint and the reply to it

Fact, recollection, opinion, assumption

Mixing these together is the single most common reason a grievance reads as unreliable. Separate them and the whole letter becomes harder to dismiss.

Organise it chronologically

Number your incidents oldest first and attach each piece of evidence to the incident it supports, rather than presenting a pile of documents and expecting the reader to match them up. A timeline also exposes the gaps early — the incident you remember vividly but cannot place in any month.

Our free workplace incident timeline builder does this in the browser, with nothing saved or sent anywhere.

Should I attach everything to my grievance?

No. Attach what is relevant to the numbered incidents, and list the rest as available on request. Forty pages of email chains buries the three messages that matter. Ask yourself, for each document: which incident does this prove, and would a stranger see that within ten seconds? The grievance letter checklist includes a final pass on this before you send.

What if I don't have witnesses?

Plenty of grievances proceed without them. Your own consistent, dated account is evidence. Look instead for indirect support: a message you sent a friend that evening, a GP appointment, a task removed from a system with a timestamp, a change in your rota. Name people who were present if they were, but do not pressure anyone to give a statement — that tends to rebound.

Can I use screenshots or private messages?

Messages you were a party to are commonly used. Take care with anything that contains other people's personal information, patient or client data, or confidential company material — sharing that more widely than necessary can create a separate problem for you, regardless of what it shows. Keep screenshots complete and unedited rather than cropped to a single line, and include the date and sender.

Should I secretly record workplace meetings?

This is not a straightforward yes or no. Covert recording is not automatically unlawful, nor automatically acceptable. Workplace policies may prohibit it and treat it as a conduct matter; privacy and data protection considerations can arise where others are recorded; and whether a recording would be admitted or given weight in any later process depends on the circumstances. If you are considering it, take advice on your specific situation from a union, Acas or a solicitor first. Asking to record a meeting openly, or requesting agreed written notes, avoids most of the difficulty.

What if most of the incidents happened verbally?

This is normal, particularly with bullying at work. Write each conversation up the same day: date, time, location, who was present, and the words as closely as you can recall, marking clearly where you are giving the sense rather than a quote. Where you can, follow up in writing afterwards — "further to our conversation this morning, you said..." — because the reply, or the silence, becomes part of the record. Where the person concerned is your line manager, see how to raise a grievance about a manager, and if a complaint has already gone in with no response, our guide on what to do when HR does not reply covers keeping that record too.