Grievances are never the beginning they're the final chapter of workplace culture breakdown. By the time a formal complaint reaches HR, the relationship has usually deteriorated in silence for months.
In this episode of @thehrldpodcast, Nick Day is joined by Roy Magara, employment solicitor advocate, founder of Magara Law, and accredited workplace mediator. Roy's career began on the legal side, managing escalations, grievances, dismissals and tribunal claims, but training and mediation gave him a different view entirely, a window into the conversations, emotional needs, and missed interventions that exist long before positions become entrenched. That dual perspective, acting for both employers and employees, is exactly what he brings to this conversation. Roy reveal the early warning signs HR leaders and people managers miss. Discover how to detect workplace culture deterioration before it escalates, why your grievance process is too late, and the specific conversations that stop problems before they become formal.
Nick and Roy explore why workplace conflict is rarely about the incident itself and almost always about what happens, or does not happen, afterwards, and why a rising number of UK employment claims are a direct consequence of avoided conversations rather than genuine wrongdoing. They unpack the early warning signs most leaders miss, from quieter team members and rising sickness absence to sarcastic emails and avoided one to ones, why people raise grievances not because they want a legal process but because they do not feel heard, and why remote and hybrid working has quietly made this worse by removing the informal moments where tension used to get caught early.
They also dig into where the genuine dividing line sits between issues that should be mediated and those that require formal investigation, why email is one of the worst mediums for resolving disputes, why leaders replacing assumption with curiosity changes outcomes, and why the coming changes to UK employment tribunal time limits, alongside a backlog stretching cases into 2029, make prevention more urgent than ever.
In a climate where tribunal claims are rising and legal exposure is widening, this episode makes the case that the real barriers were never about policy documents. They are about silence, avoidance, and managers who were never trained to have the conversation in the first place.
A must-listen for HR leaders, in-house counsel, people managers, and anyone responsible for building a workplace where conflict gets resolved before it ever needs a policy to intervene.
Enjoyed this? Check out our sister podcast @thepayrollpodcast for more great content!
This episode is sponsored by Deel
Managing a global team is complex, Deel makes it simpler with payroll, HR, IT, and compliance all in one place. That's why over 35,000 businesses trust Deel to hire, pay, and manage their teams worldwide.
See how Deel works at www.deel.com/nickday
Guest and Host:
Roy Magara's LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/roymagara
Magara Law website: https://www.magaralaw.co.uk/
Acas Guide to workplace mediation: https://www.acas.org.uk/mediation
Nick Day's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickday/
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Stay tuned for the next episode of the HR L&D Podcast, brought to you by Nick Day, CEO at JGA Recruitment, landing soon!
Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction and Welcome to the HR L&D Podcast
(01:37) What Human Resources Means to Roy Magara
(03:00) The Biggest Misconception About Where Conflict Begins
(04:09) Early Warning Signs Leaders Routinely Miss
(08:04) Why Employees Really Raise Grievances
(17:01) Roy's Journey From Employment Lawyer to Mediator
(21:50) What Feeling Heard Actually Looks Like
(25:14) Reframing Conflict: Avoidance vs Disagreement
(26:36) Mediation vs Formal Investigation: Where the Line Sits
(32:15) The First 72 Hours: What HR Leaders Should Do
(35:14) Tribunal Backlogs and the Case for Mandatory Mediation
(49:01) HR Vault: Roy's Rapid-Fire Leadership Advice
