Transcribing Employment Tribunals and Disciplinary Hearings

Posted on 31st August 2016 • Categories: Workplace Disputes

Transcribing Employment Tribunals and Disciplinary Hearings

In the world that we live in, employment tribunals and disciplinary hearings are becoming more common and can be a nightmare for businesses, especially in the early stages where formal meetings are held in house. In such instances there are often no hard and fast rules on what to record or how to conduct such meetings, which makes it easy for things to get taken out of context or for cases of ‘your word against mine’ to arise.  For this reason, many companies now choose to transcribe all disciplinary and grievance meetings and associated conversations.

By making a ‘Recording and Transcription of Grievance Meetings’ a formal part of your Discipline and Grievance Policy, this demonstrates fairness to your company employees.  It goes without saying that a transcription of the recording will give you an accurate and complete record of who said what. If the issue is taken further, this can then be used as evidence, provided both parties gave consent for the recording to be made.

Where there is disagreement or mistrust in the employer-employee relationship, advising the employee that a third-party will be transcribing the document removes any conflict of interest and can be used as a stepping stone to re-building the relationship.  Follow these steps below to ensure an accurate transcript of your meetings.

• Use a good quality recorder and place it close enough to the meeting participants that their voices can be heard clearly.
• Make sure that you have consent from all parties to record the meeting, get this in writing if you feel it is necessary.
• Get those present to introduce themselves by saying their name and position, this way your transcriptionist can identify which voice is which and identify them correctly in the transcript.
• Ask everyone to speak loud and clear and for only one person to be speaking at a time. It’s a transcriptionist’s nightmare trying to pick out the key and relevant words when conversations get heated and half a dozen people are speaking at once.
• Try to avoid shuffling papers or tapping pens on the table and make sure all windows and doors are closed to avoid noises such as beeping horns, buses going past, and barking dogs.