Issue management is the process organizations use to identify, track and resolve workplace concerns before they escalate. For a long time, many HR teams have treated it as a purely administrative function, with checklists, spreadsheets and boxes to check. And while consistency matters, that approach misses the point. Employees aren’t tickets to be closed. And spreadsheets don’t have the intelligence to help identify red flags before risk explodes.
HR leaders today need an issue management strategy that’s built around people…one that leverages the right technology while never losing sight of the human element.
Key Takeaways: Guide to Issue Management
- Issue management is the structured process organizations use to identify, track and resolve workplace issues before they escalate into crises.
- A clear issue management process improves consistency, reduces organizational risk and builds employee trust.
- Effective issue management requires both pre- and post-issue planning, not just reactive response.
- HR and ER leaders play a central role in managing issues across the full employee lifecycle, from intake to resolution.
- Purpose-built issue management technology helps enterprise teams track, prioritize and resolve issues more efficiently and with greater accountability.
Issue Management vs. Crisis Management
Issue management and crisis management are related but not the same thing…and the distinction matters.
Issue Management
Issue management is more proactive than crisis management. It’s the process of identifying and resolving workplace concerns before they escalate — tracking complaints, moving investigations forward and making sure nothing gets dropped. The goal is to address problems while they’re still manageable.
Crisis Management
Crisis management is reactive. It kicks in when something has already gone wrong, like a serious incident, a legal threat or a situation that puts the organization or its people at risk. Where issue management is about process and prevention, crisis management is about response and damage control.
Why Issue Management Is Important In The Workplace
Issue management is one of HR’s most essential functions. At its core, it’s about making sure nothing falls through the cracks. That means:
- Complaints get logged
- Accommodation requests get tracked
- Investigations move forward
- Policy violations don’t quietly disappear
Done well, it creates consistency across the organization, protects against risk and gives HR teams the visibility to spot patterns before they become bigger problems. Done poorly, it creates liability…and a workforce that stops reporting issues because they assume nothing will happen anyway.
Additionally, issue management is a far-reaching responsibility of the role. HR professionals need to handle all types of issues to maintain a positive working environment. They also need to identify and resolve these issues in a timely manner.
The Issue Management Process Can Be Broken Down Into Seven Main Steps
The issue management process provides a structured approach for identifying, tracking and resolving issues in the workplace. Here are the seven steps HR professionals follow:
- Identification: Identify the issue.
- Documentation: Create a logbook containing important information and updates on the specific issue.
- Responsibility Assessment: Assign roles and commitments so managers know who will be responsible for each part of the investigation.
- Assessment: Assess the issue to determine its severity.
- Investigation: Gather information from all parties involved.
- Resolution: Make decisions about how to handle the issue and take necessary actions.
- Closure: Close the issue so all involved are aware of when they can move on.
Every organization’s issue management process looks a little different. What works for one workforce won’t necessarily work for another. The key is building a process that’s consistent, thorough, and built around the actual needs of your employees and employee relations best practices.
10 Techniques For Effective Issue Management In The Workplace
Managing risk is essential for project success and the cohesiveness of any organization. But that requires more than just a defined process. It also depends on how teams apply best practices in real-world scenarios.
These best practices can help teams manage issues more effectively and improve overall issue management outcomes.
1. Categorize Issues According to Their Severity
Every issue that develops in an organization is going to be unique and should be approached as such.
Some problems may be more severe than others and require different methods and responses from human resources. Using a green light, yellow light or red light approach (where green lights fall within the best practices of your organization and red light encompasses serious allegations of wrongdoing) can help you develop best practices for specific situations.
This method of categorizing will also help when distinguishing which issues need to be escalated to upper management.
2. Consider Pre and Post-Issue Management
While investigating an issue is important, HR and employee relations managers must also develop effective plans before and after an issue occurs. Pre-issue management is the process of setting expectations and planning for potential issues before they happen. This includes identifying and managing risks, gathering information about the issue and creating a plan for addressing it. If you’re not proactive here, your organization will be more likely to experience an incident or crisis that may have been prevented if proper measures were taken.
Post-issue management is when an issue has happened. It includes crisis communications, issuing a public statement or providing updates to stakeholders. The team should document what happened, what could have been done to prevent it and how they will fix it going forward. Gathering feedback from all those involved will also help to apply lessons from future projects.
3. Identify and Solve the Issue’s Root Cause
Employees can quickly become demotivated and alienated from their employers when certain issues tend to continue arising even though they’ve been deemed “closed.” For example, if an employee and project manager faced a communication barrier that resulted in less than ideal outcomes in the past, and a later project led to the same problem again, then it’s clear that the root cause of the issue hasn’t been addressed. Perhaps there are issues with the issue management system itself to resolve. If you can aim to solve the root cause of an issue, you can save time, money and heartache by only having to deal with it once.
4. Create a Timeline
Developing a predetermined timeline – that can be modified when necessary – can greatly improve the efficiency of your investigations. One major no-no of issue management is letting the process drag on too long. This can rake up an expensive legal bill if your organization is involved with lawyers or professional investigators, and it looks bad on the organization as a whole to appear as if problems are not being taken seriously or “brushed off.” You can support strong issue tracking by assigning each critical step in the process a due date that must be met and ensuring everyone involved in the investigation is committed to these dates.
5. Consider Your Employees’ Needs
It’s important to bring all employees together and evaluate where an issue may occur, so you can solve it preemptively. The modern workplace has evolved to include multi-generational, widespread employees who may not have the opportunity to meet and connect in person. Depending on the unique needs of each employee, which may fully include their generational characteristics, they may need to be kept updated differently. For example, sending an email form of communication as well as utilizing a smartphone application can reach staff on different levels.
6. Share Your Issue Management Process with Your Workforce
Once you’ve developed a concrete procedure to follow throughout the issue management lifecycle, each staff member must be aware of it – and conscious of their own responsibilities in the process. One excellent way to share the issue management strategy is via the employee handbook. In this way, employees will see their rights and responsibilities as employees and what they can expect from management and HR, accessing it whenever they like.
7. Ask for Feedback
HR managers should be aware that they need to make their employees feel like they are important and that their opinion matters so that they can create an engaging culture. After, and even during an investigation of an issue or crisis, there is value in asking those involved for feedback on how it went. If the entire plan is followed through by HR managers alone, there leaves room for bias, misinterpretation and a windowed view of what’s occurring. Feedback can bring to light where resources may be wasted and what areas of issue management can be improved.
8. Continue to Review Your Logs & Tracking Regularly
It’s important to continually check back and review your logs and tracking records consistently throughout the issue management process. By doing this you – or the assigned expert responsible for this task – will be more likely to connect issues or pinpoint inconsistencies that help the investigation. Keeping a log is important, but going back to review what you’ve gathered so far will ensure nothing is missed and your team comes to the right conclusion. Don’t spend too much time looking back, however, as it can backfire if you end up losing sight of your end goal.
9. Implement an Escalation Plan
Many of the issues that will appear in the workplace can be managed effectively by HR and ER, but there will be instances where it will need to be outsourced to upper management. There should be a review process in place that determines what needs the attention from higher up and what can be handled within human resources. It’s important not to waste time and resources by escalating a crisis that could be handled internally. However, time can also accumulate when a complex issue should have been escalated much earlier.
10. Use Technology as a Resource
More organizations are realizing the benefits of having an issue management system set in place with the help of automated analytics through cloud-based software. It can monitor the potential for issues and provide resolutions that can prevent them from maturing into a full-blown crisis. The right software delivers valuable insight into employee behavior to support positive employee relations (ER) while also giving the right tools and resources to mitigate and investigate workplace issues that will inevitably arise.
Your own leadership type will be a contributing factor in how your HR department implements its issue management process. You – and your team – may be more receptive with the use of color mapping while others may use checklists instead. Remember to go with what you know and what you and your organization are comfortable with and use these best practices as a guideline to streamline your strategy.
Lower Risk With An Effective Issue Management System
A structured issue management process helps organizations reduce risk, improve consistency and respond to issues more effectively. That’s why case management technology is a major asset. It helps organizations across various industries monitor, track, investigate and resolve issues. Investigations are handled faster and in a standardized manner, teams no longer need to hire an outside investigator and employees can rest assured their concerns will be treated with the consistency they deserve.
HR Acuity provides best practice-embedded employee relations software built on decades of real-world employee relations experience. With defensible AI and drag-and-drop dashboards in-platform, it’s never been easier to track employee behavior and act before issues escalate.
For issues that do arise, our issue management software allows each incident to be actively tracked, assessed of their risk and prioritized based on their severity and necessary course of action. By taking many of the administrative tasks off the shoulders of HR professionals, they can proactively address and meet the needs of their organization while focusing on employee relations and employee engagement within the workplace.
If you’re ready to explore how HR Acuity helps teams create a more effective issue management system, request a customized demo today.
